DGB concept ignores demographic change and sidesteps the question of affordability

BDA-CEO Steffen Kampeter on the findings of the DGB Pensions Commission:

DGB concept ignores demographic change and sidesteps the question of affordability

Berlin, 26 June 2026. “The DGB’s pension concept is a catalogue of trade union aspirations, but not a viable reform proposal. It ignores demographic change just as it sidesteps the question of affordability.

The DGB continues to rely on costly early retirement schemes, the social inequity of which has just been convincingly demonstrated by the Pension Commission. Anyone who intends to use rising life expectancy merely to extend the duration of retirement has failed to recognise the signs of the times. The only answer the DGB has to the ageing of society is even higher contributions and greater recourse to public funds for pension provision.

The additional costs of the DGB’s proposals would be enormous. In the short term alone, they would amount to more than €50 billion. If the pension level were to rise to 53 per cent in ten years, as envisaged by the DGB, the figure would exceed €130 billion.

Old-age provision can only be reliable if it remains affordable in the long term. Sadly, this is not the case for the DGB concept. It makes a financial debacle in the statutory pension insurance system more likely.”