BERLIN, Dec 3 (Reuters) \u2013 Germany\u2019s opposition far-left Left party said it would abstain from voting on a contentious pensions package on Friday, likely indirectly securing its passage through parliament and saving Chancellor Friedrich Merz from a humiliating defeat.<\/p>\n
The bill, which will keep the state pension at current levels until 2031, is a key pillar of the coalition deal between Merz\u2019s conservatives and his centre-left Social Democrat partner, who have just a slender governing majority of 12 votes.<\/p>\n
But its passage in parliament had looked in doubt due to objections within the conservatives\u2019 youth faction, who argue it perpetuates a financially unsustainable system given an ageing population, simply leaving younger generations to foot the bill.<\/p>\n
Heidi Reichinnek, parliamentary leader of the Left party, said it would abstain in order to protect pensioners, not to help the coalition, accusing the conservatives in particular of \u201cplaying power games on the back of millions\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt won\u2019t be because of us if the pension level fails to be stabilised,\u201d said Reichinnek, adding that maintaining state pension levels at 48% of the average wage was the \u201cabsolute minimum\u201d.<\/p>\n
If the Left party\u2019s 64 lawmakers do abstain rather than oppose the bill, the coalition needs fewer votes to pass it \u2013 and need not worry about the young conservatives\u2019 potential 18 rebels who have yet to declare which way they will vote.<\/p>\n
Its unsolicited help may have averted a government crisis but feeds a growing impression that Merz and his ideologically misaligned coalition cannot be counted on to pass key legislation.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, Holger Hansen, Markus Wacket; Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Daniel Wallis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN, Dec 3 (Reuters) \u2013 Germany\u2019s opposition far-left Left party said it would abstain from voting on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-169221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}