Hüther calls the agreement to raise the minimum wage to 12 euros under pressure from the SPD and the Greens “questionable in terms of regulatory policy”.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The head of the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft (IW), Michael Hüther, has clearly criticized the traffic light parties’ plans for financing, pensions and the minimum wage. The statements in the exploratory paper on pensions and overall demographic aging are “unsatisfactory and contradicting”. “This challenge cannot be adequately met in this way,” said the economist to the Handelsblatt. Ifo boss Clemens Fuest had also expressed violent criticism of the “postponed pension reform”.
Hüther criticizes the passage on future investments as “puzzlingly open” “within the framework of the debt brake”. A solution for this could be investment companies for the various infrastructure networks, which other economists also welcome. It is good, however, that the traffic light negotiators were not planning any citizens’ insurance “and neither new taxes will be introduced nor existing ones increased”.
Hüther calls the agreement to raise the minimum wage to 12 euros under pressure from the SPD and the Greens “questionable in terms of regulatory policy”. It is not only undermining the social partners’ commission, which is generally responsible for determining the minimum wage. But it also stands in contrast to the planned new experimentation rooms in the world of work and better incentives for mid-jobs.
The employers had already heavily criticized the minimum wage resolution. The overturning of the minimum wage commission was “a serious interference with collective bargaining autonomy” and “extremely dangerous”, its president Rainer Dulger had warned.
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However, Hüther also has praise ready for the explorers: They surprised above all with the “willingness to uncomplicated, goal-oriented cooperation”. In terms of style and brevity, your paper is “a rejection of the lengthiness of Merkel’s explorations – here a common leadership and design claim becomes clear”.
He finds the plans for the digital state, “for market-oriented cross-sectoral climate protection”, for innovation promotion and internal security “largely convincing”. This also applies to free trade – “here comes the moment of truth with the pending adoption of the Ceta Agreement with Canada”.
At the same time, Hüther welcomes the planned simplification of the skilled worker immigration law. According to the head of the IW, the goal of increasing Germany’s spending on research and development to a total of 3.5 percent of gross domestic product is “ambitious”. Most recently it was 3.2 percent. However, the paper does not give a year. The elected grand coalition wanted to achieve the goal by 2025.
More: The original joint paper on the result of the traffic light explorations