German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends the cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. [AP Photo\/Markus Schreiber]<\/p>\n
On October 8, the coalition committee of the Merz-Klingbeil Christian Democrat\/Social Democrat government abolished\u00a0B\u00fcrgergeld\u00a0(\u201cCitizens\u2019 Income\u201d basic welfare payments). The decision reveals the true character of this government, which is preparing for war abroad and class war at home. As early as August, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Christian Democratic Union\u2014CDU) declared, \u201cWe can no longer afford the welfare state<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n With the new, harsh rules for basic social security, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), is now directly following the dictates of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). On September 24, AfD leader Alice Weidel had ranted in the Bundestag (parliament) that\u00a0B\u00fcrgergeld\u00a0had \u201cdegenerated into immigrant money, the costs of which are completely out of control.\u201d It was, she said, \u201ca self-service shop in which freeloaders can enrich themselves without shame.\u201d She shrieked: \u201cAbolish\u00a0B\u00fcrgergeld\u00a0once and for all!\u201d<\/p>\n The government has now complied. \u201cB\u00fcrgergeld\u00a0is history,\u201d declared Christian Social Union (CSU) leader Markus S\u00f6der at a federal press conference on Thursday morning. Chancellor Merz confirmed that \u201cthe chapter of\u00a0B\u00fcrgergeld\u00a0is thereby closed.\u201d The federal minister for labour and social affairs, B\u00e4rbel Bas (SPD), announced: \u201cWe are tightening sanctions to the limits of what is constitutionally permissible.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the very measures the coalition has now adopted\u2014complete withdrawal of benefits as punishment\u2014were long considered unconstitutional. When asked about this at the press conference, Bas replied: \u201cFor those refusing appointments, there will now be a cascade of sanctions that ultimately reduces benefits to zero. \u2026 We are firmly convinced that this complies with the constitution.\u201d Merz explained how this works: anyone receiving social benefits who misses a first and second appointment will have their already meagre payments (\u20ac563 per month) cut by 30 percent. If they miss a third appointment, all payments will cease.<\/p>\n The 5.5 million people receiving basic social assistance, who are now being put under such pressure, also face benefit cuts. Despite rising prices, they will have to expect a freeze next year. Pensioners dependent on supplementary benefits will also be affected. With all these measures, the government expects savings of up to \u20ac5 billion.<\/p>\n At the same time, Merz is handing out tax gifts to shareholders and business owners. He plans to gradually reduce the corporation tax rate paid by companies, limited partnerships and joint-stock firms from the current 15 percent to 10 percent by 2029. In the post-war decades, this rate once stood at 65 percent. \u201cWe will have the lowest corporation tax rate ever,\u201d the chancellor promised in the Bundestag September 24. This alone will deprive the federal budget of \u20ac46 billion over five years\u2014two-thirds of which will go to those already earning more than \u20ac180,000 a year.<\/p>\n Very different treatment awaits those living on the edge of poverty. Bas made it clear at the press conference that the government intends to coerce the unemployed into accepting any kind of work. \u201cWe can only save money if we focus on work,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we get 100,000 people out of\u00a0B\u00fcrgergeld\u00a0and into jobs, we will save about one billion euros.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the ongoing\u00a0mass layoffs<\/a>\u00a0in Germany, this is an unmistakable threat. At a time when hundreds of thousands of workers in the car and supplier industries are losing their secure, decently paid jobs, men and women who have worked in industry for decades are now to be forced\u2014after a short period of unemployment\u2014into any available low-paid job.<\/p>\n The attack on\u00a0B\u00fcrgergeld\u00a0is part of a budget that allocates billions for rearmament and war. The federal budget, which rose from \u20ac476.8 billion in 2024 to \u20ac502.5 billion this year, will increase again next year to \u20ac520.5 billion. Added to this are annual allocations from the \u201cspecial funds\u201d for the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) and infrastructure to improve Germany\u2019s \u201creadiness for war\u201d, allowing\u00a0borrowing of up to \u20ac1 trillion<\/a>. Including these special funds, total federal expenditures will exceed \u20ac600 billion in 2026\u2014an increase of nearly 26 percent over 2024. Most of this money is going to the military.<\/p>\n The defence budget is the only one seeing massive growth: the Bundeswehr will receive \u20ac82.7 billion next year\u2014\u20ac20 billion more than this year. Including allocations from the special fund (over \u20ac80 billion this year), the total will exceed \u20ac108 billion. Compared with the 2015 defence budget (\u20ac33 billion), this figure has tripled. By 2029, the defence budget is to rise to \u20ac153 billion (3.5 percent of GDP), and in the following years to 5 percent of GDP.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, more and more of the announced \u201cinvestments\u201d are being channelled into the transformation of society toward a\u00a0war economy<\/a>. Entire production sites\u2014such as VW Osnabr\u00fcck and Alstom in G\u00f6rlitz\u2014are converting to arms manufacturing with state subsidies. The special infrastructure fund is also not primarily used to renovate decaying schools, hospitals, care homes or public transport but to build war-ready roads, bridges, motorways and communication systems for conducting surveillance at home and abroad.<\/p>\n To finance this war budget, the government is taking on a colossal mountain of debt. To fund the special budgets, it plans to borrow \u20ac170 billion annually until 2029. Over five years, this means \u20ac850 billion in new debt, raising total public debt to \u20ac2.7 trillion.<\/p>\n Merz\u2019s commitment to rearmament\u2014his \u201cwhatever it takes\u201d pledge\u2014means that an ever-growing share of the federal budget will flow to the banks as interest and debt repayments. By 2029, these payments will amount to \u20ac66.5 billion\u2014and could rise to \u20ac100 billion, according to the German Taxpayers\u2019 Association, which warns of Germany\u2019s declining credit rating on global markets.<\/p>\n Defending his policy in the Bundestag September 23, Merz declared: \u201cWe face one of the most challenging phases in modern history \u2026 Foreign and domestic policy can no longer be separated.\u201d Workers, he insisted, must finally understand that they will bear the cost of rearmament and debt. \u201cWe need a national understanding of the inevitability of change,\u201d said Merz.<\/p>\n This attack on\u00a0B\u00fcrgergeld\u00a0marks a clear signal for a frontal assault on all social achievements won over decades. The government is proceeding step by step against the poorest and most defenceless. Back in May, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) had halted family reunification for refugees and, with SPD backing, ramped up deportations.<\/p>\n The\u00a0World Socialist Web Site\u00a0warned at the time that this was merely the prelude to attacks on all workers. This has now been confirmed. Discussions are already underway about abolishing \u201cCare Level One\u201d payments, introduced in 2017, which would affect 5.7 million people in need of care\u2014865,000 of whom would lose all benefits.<\/p>\n The government has long viewed the federal pension subsidies\u2014comprising about 70 percent of the Labour and Social Affairs budget\u2014as a prime target. For now, only the so-called \u201cactive pension\u201d has been introduced: starting next year, retirees who continue to work can earn up to \u20ac2,000 tax-free. A broader assault on the pension system has been outsourced by Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil (SPD) to an expert commission, which is to present recommendations by early 2027.<\/p>\n Not a single party, from the AfD to the Left Party, has\u00a0questioned the federal budget<\/a>\u00a0or its basic premise: that Germany must become a major military power again and be \u201cfit for war\u201d against Russia by 2029. The \u201cspecial funds\u201d worth over \u20ac1 trillion were made possible only thanks to the active support of the\u00a0pro-war Greens<\/a>. The Left Party approved these plans<\/a>\u00a0in the Bundesrat (upper chamber of parliament) and has since backed their implementation in parliamentary committees. It also\u00a0paved the way<\/a>\u00a0for Merz\u2019s swift election as chancellor.<\/p>\n The social cutbacks and massive state debt differ little from the conditions that have already led to repeated government crises and\u00a0mass protests in France<\/a>. A similar revolutionary situation is rapidly developing in Germany.<\/p>\n Anger in the working class over these social attacks is immense, but it has no political voice, as the trade unions are tightly bound to the SPD, in government with the Christian Democrats, and integrated into German corporate structures. This close collaboration was again demonstrated on Thursday, immediately after the press conference, when IG Metall union chair Christiane Benner met with government representatives and industry leaders at the \u201cauto summit.\u201d<\/p>\n What is required is a determined, independent and international response by the working class. The struggle against social devastation must be linked to the struggle against war and fascism. The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) call for the building of\u00a0independent action committees<\/a>\u00a0in all workplaces, as part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), to unite workers in the fight against capitalist exploitation, war and for a socialist programme.<\/p>\n Sign up for the WSWS email newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends the cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[11850,2000,299,1824,49378,24861,18266,32756,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-500574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-austerity","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-imperialism","13":"tag-militarism","14":"tag-poverty","15":"tag-social-inequality","16":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115376323671581191","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} In March 2024, 10,000 employees demonstrated against layoffs in front of the Bosch headquarters in Gerlingen near Stuttgart<\/p>\n
Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the formation ceremony of the Bundeswehr tank brigade in Lithuania [Photo by Bundesregierug \/ Guido Bergman]<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n