The two-party coalition of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz survived the pension reform vote by a tiny margin of 3 votes, but 12 young Christian Democrats voted against it. Their argument was that increasing state support to pension payments would burden future generations—a radical free market view.
This will prompt retaliation by the Social Democrats at the next best occasion, as the reform was mainly their project: there are numerous social and labor market issues on which, particularly the young Christian Democrats insist on free market solutions on which the Social Democrats cannot make fargoing concessions without putting themselves at risk of losing the rest of labor union support. The next government crises are therefore preprogrammed, but for now, the government coalition survived—until Christmas.
