The two -class society in Germany should actually be in the plural. There are the townspeople and the landing eggs, the Ossis and the Wessis, the tenants and the owners, the managers and the Malochers, the private insured and the health insurance patients. But hardly any ditch is deeper than that between employees and civil servants. If you are looking for it, you only need to type in the topic, as recently the designated SPD chairman Bärbel Bas. She asked to include civil servants in the statutory pension insurance, as well as self -employed people. And – with a demonstrative humility, like some murmurers – also MPs like you. In the CDU, with which the SPD has only been forming a new government for a few days, this was not well received. This text comes from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. It is different in the general population that, according to surveys, is with a large majority to include new state employees in the future in the statutory pension insurance. At first glance, this seems understandable: According to the Federal Statistical Office, the pension in Germany is an average of EUR 3240, and even 4973 euros in the higher service. On the other hand, if you have spent your life as an employee, you can only expect an average of 1,150 euros. The difference becomes smaller if the company pensions of many employees and the tendency to take into account the higher level of qualification of civil servants. Nevertheless, many perceive the rapidly increasing costs of the system as unfair: In 2022, the state put 53 billion euros in the supply of its 1.4 million pensioners, plus costs for survivor care and aid. And it becomes more expensive every year. “The long -term development of the pension expenses is a first -class financial policy problem,” says Martin Werding, professor of public finances in Bochum and member of the Federal Government’s Council of Experts. “We have to approach this system.” However, a reform would not only have to take many legal and political hurdles. It could have sensitive consequences for the financial stability of statutory retirement provision – and above all change which people will be in the service of the state in the future. A short perspective, the proposal from BAS would help stabilize the level of pension. After all, there were more contributors, but no longer pensioners. However, this effect fizzles out when the civil servants are retiring – and the system hits all the harder because officials have a statistically around two years longer life expectancy than employees. For public budgets, from which the expenditure for civil servant care has so far been financed, the situation would be tightened in the transition period: Not only would you have to serve the retirees from the old system. At the same time, they would have to provide for the new civil servants, which would mean that if the net references remain the same, both employer and employee share. “To the same extent, as you provide for additional revenue in pension, you tear holes into the public households that actually need the money for ongoing pensions,” summarizes the economy. The income brings in strictly separating his colleagues from the Council of Experts, Werding has developed a proposal, as the retirement provision of civil servants and employees could at least partially be transferred to a common system. As with many employees, the retirement provision of the officials would be composed of a legal pension and a company pension, which would then have to be paid by the employer. So that the additional money in the statutory pension fund is not simply issued for higher payouts and lower contributions, the officials of the officials land in a separate pot. From this pot, the current supply of the pensioners would also be part of the extent – increasingly to the extent that it will fill himself through more contributors over the years. With the second pillar based on the company pension scheme, retirement provision would be increased. This system would be more transparent, according to Werding, and cuts of the statutory pension insurance also automatically affect the civil servants, for example in terms of pension level. However, the officials would only be felt if the “company pension” set up was not simply recorded at the previous level of pension. At least at the beginning you would still do that with a view to the enforceability of the reform. In the long run, however, one would have to say goodbye to the complete compensation, otherwise nothing would change at the costs. A larger and easier to use lever, it would be fewer staff. Wherever state forced violence and the independence of the civil servants are particularly important – for example in the police, judiciary and financial administration – the civil servant status would have to remain for legal reasons. Unlike teachers who by definition do not perform any “sovereign tasks”. Many career changers are already working as employees in schools. Nevertheless, the number of civil servants and judges has increased since the mid-2010s after decreasing for a long time. In addition to an increasingly complex state apparatus, this is also due to the fact that many offices and authorities continue to rely on civil servants. A often argument: Privileges such as the pension are crucial so that the state remains attractive as an employer. After all, the covers were often among the salaries in the free economy, especially with engineers, top lawyers or computer science. He confirms that the entitlement to a pension acts as a compensation. “We realize that a great deal of uncertainty has spread politically and socially in recent years. A pension is a stability an anchor and a clear competitive advantage of public service to the private sector.” If you would abolish or relativize it, you have to improve other factors. “Then we are on the subject of salaries or career prospects.” More money during professional life and less retired: This would make it more to be equal to the employees in an official life. “This could increase the permeability between public service and the free economy,” says Martin Werding. It is just like this: Anyone who has reached the civil servant status usually no longer gives it up. Otherwise, he loses the claim to the pension and would be insured in the statutory pension fund, which is associated with significant losses in retirement provision. It is not easy to become an employee as an employee. Because for the amount of the pension in addition to the service, the last basic salary counts before retirement, the employees are the more reserved with the job the older the applicant. The border for a civil servant is between 40 and 50 years in the federal states. At an advanced age, only a few are willing to accept a step back in the salary, especially if you don’t even expect a pension, says Zekorn from Hapeko. Officials with a bad image of the question is whether it would be a good development to have more career changers in the public service. On the one hand, he could certainly benefit from experienced people from the free economy. The much -tuned state modernization requires new impulses and sometimes unconventional methods. A incentive system that promotes careers in official silos seems little up to date. On the other hand, there are reasons for linking lifelong loyalty with lifelong care. The “reward at the end” in the form of the pension can also gain good things. She contributes to a “best issue” in the sense of the public administration: “This does not belong to a profession that we want to be in law and incorruptible that he acts regardless of the respective politicians and in the sense of the common good?” This question affects the core of the initial debate: it is about whether civil servants creates an over average and fundamentally funded care in old age justifies. The fact that many Germans do not see it that way reveals a lot about their picture of their civil servants. In the public service you put a calm ball, it is often said, and drags yourself, it is certainly due to the clerk who drops the pen at 2 p.m. The modalities of the pension system alone suggest a certain personality: which type of person does not already do without a better content in favor of unc termination and good retirement? “Research already shows that civil servants are tended to be risky,” says Isabella Proeller, owner of the Chair for Public and Nonprofit Management at the University of Potsdam. However, one has to differentiate: “Just because financial security is important, you can still dare new things at work.” She refers to a study by Danish scientist. This shows that the openness to change among employees in the public and private sector is equally pronounced. For the study, the researchers examined 20 countries, including Germany. This raises the question of whether career changers could then initiate such large innovations at all – or whether the bureaucracy in the administration does not have other reasons. In terms of economy, it means that commitment is less rewarded in the civil service, but mistakes would tend to be more severely punished. This fits that state officials are compliant and adapted as employees according to the Danish study. This stabilizes the administration, say the researchers. At the same time, it inhibits change processes. As a conclusion: If you reform a part of the incentive system with the guest houses, you have to weigh up a lot more than obvious financial consequences for old -age security.
