The chancellor urged workers to see welfare cuts not as a \u201cthreat\u201d but as \u201ca big chance\u201d<\/p>\n
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was booed and mocked during a speech on Tuesday to one of the country\u2019s biggest trade union groups as he tried to sell his welfare cut plans.
\nMerz has a history of blaming Germany\u2019s economic troubles on its people. Last August, he said that the \u201cwelfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed.\u201d In January, he urged Germans to work more, arguing that the \u201cproductivity of our economy is not high enough.\u201d
\nHe told a gathering of some 400 delegates from the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) that people must pull together because \u201cwe simply failed to modernize our country.\u201d
\nBoos and whistles first erupted as he spoke about the health insurance reform approved by his cabinet in April. The changes, which Merz described as \u201chistoric,\u201d are expected to save the government \u20ac16 billion ($18.7 billion), while forcing people to pay more for drugs previously covered by insurance even as their contributions continue to rise.<\/p>\n
The chancellor then claimed that the upcoming pension reform \u2013 expected to be unveiled this summer \u2013 was driven by \u201cdemographics and mathematics\u201d rather than \u201cmalice on my part or on the part of the federal government.\u201d The remarks were also met with hissing and laughter, particularly when he claimed that the reform plans were \u201cnot a threat\u201d but a \u201cbig chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
From market to military: Germany\u2019s private sector is imploding.<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s economy saw two years of recession in 2023 and 2024, and a period of near-stagnation in 2025 as its industry has been hit by rising energy and labor costs alongside weak demand. Berlin\u2019s decision to abandon cheap Russian energy imports in 2022 as part of the EU sanctions policy in the wake of the Ukraine conflict escalation also played a major role in this development.
\nLast year, Germany\u2019s central bank warned about a looming record budget deficit, attributing the threat to higher defense spending and continued financial support for Kiev.
\nMerz and his cabinet continue to pursue the chancellor\u2019s goal of turning the German army into the strongest conventional force in Europe, citing a supposed \u2018Russian threat.\u2019 Moscow has repeatedly dismissed such allegations as \u201cnonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The chancellor urged workers to see welfare cuts not as a \u201cthreat\u201d but as \u201ca big chance\u201d German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was booed and mocked during a speech on Tuesday…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}