This transcript details the Preamble and initial policy sections of the coalition agreement "Responsibility for Germany" between the CDU, CSU, and SPD for the 21st legislative period. The document acknowledges significant challenges, including external threats to liberal democracy, sustained economic weakness, and declining public trust. It outlines the coalition's agenda for comprehensive renewal, focusing on strengthening the social market economy, ensuring security and defense, enhancing state capability through modernization and bureaucracy reduction, managing migration and integration, and improving daily life. Key commitments include an investment offensive featuring a €100 billion Germany Fund and a €500 billion Special Infrastructure Fund, significant bureaucracy reduction targets (25% cost reduction), reforms to the labor market and social welfare systems (including a targeted €15 minimum wage), accelerating planning and approval procedures, and advancing climate protection goals through energy transition and hydrogen economy development.
Responsibility for Germany: A Look into the Coalition Agreement for the 21st Legislative Period
0:21 Acknowledging Challenges: The coalition identifies historic challenges for Germany, including external threats to democracy and security (authoritarian powers, hybrid attacks), internal political attacks, a sustained weak economy with rising costs, irregular migration, and declining public trust. They see the election result as a mandate for comprehensive national renewal.
2:21 Vision for Renewal: The agreement aims to build on Germany's strengths (liberal democracy, social market economy, solidarity), clean up weaknesses, and create new security, stability, and cohesion. The goal is to make Germany better and capable of mastering tasks through its own strength and international solidarity.
3:28 Renewing the Social Market Economy: Focus areas include creating a competitive and growing economy, improving conditions for companies and employees, promoting innovation, comprehensively reducing bureaucracy, and ensuring fairness where performance pays off. They aim to raise potential growth significantly above 1%.
4:16 Strengthening Social Cohesion: This involves reliable social security systems, more equal opportunities, co-determination, and good wages, with a central focus on achieving actual equality between women and men.
4:39 Enhancing Defense and Deterrence: The coalition commits to strengthening defense capabilities as a prerequisite for peace and stands by Ukraine, supporting its defense of freedom and rule-based order while seeking a just and negotiated peace.
5:20 Building a Capable State: Addressing declining trust in public institutions, they propose a reform plan for a functioning, digital, and more efficient state, including significant investment in infrastructure like trains, roads, bridges, and healthcare.
5:57 Organizing Migration and Promoting Integration: They emphasize protecting national borders and deciding who enters, stays, and leaves, while also recognizing the need for skilled immigration due to an aging society and improving legal pathways and integration frameworks.
6:30 Improving Daily Life: Aims to make life easier, more affordable, and fairer, ensuring performance and efforts are rewarded, securing pensions, investing in education, and respecting religious freedom.
7:08 Recognizing East German Contribution: Celebrates 35 years of German unity, highlighting the extraordinary achievements and transformation mastery of people in East Germany as a basis for future design.
8:29 Economy, Industry, Tourism: Goals include making the German economy strong, remaining an industrial and medium-sized country while becoming an AI and founding nation, and returning to significant growth through structural reforms, investment, innovation, and reduced bureaucracy/energy prices.
9:55 Boosting Innovation: Proposals include a startup protection zone, simplifying notarization (digital, automatic data exchange), creating a complete one-stop shop for company formation within 24 hours, and establishing Germany as an AI nation through massive investments and connecting AI with robotics.
11:09 Launching an Investment Offensive: A "Germany Fund" will be established with at least €10 billion of federal funds, leveraging private capital to reach at least €100 billion, acting as an umbrella for financing gaps, especially for SMEs and scaleups, with an investment focus on Germany.
13:35 Strengthening Industrial Location: Aims for competitive energy prices (reducing electricity tax, abolishing gas storage levy), accelerating the hydrogen economy (including CCS for unavoidable industrial emissions and gas plants), shortening approval procedures for industrial plants, preventing "carbon leakage," and supporting strategic industries like steel, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and microelectronics.
19:22 Supporting the Automotive Industry: Commitment to Germany as an automotive location and its jobs, promoting technological openness, preventing fines related to fleet limits, promoting e-mobility (purchase incentives, special depreciation, tax exemption, charging infrastructure expansion), and supporting domestic battery production.
22:08 Advancing Space Travel: Recognizing space as a future and key technology, they commit to strengthening the European Space Agency (ESA), expanding the national space program, striving for a German astronaut on a Moon mission, participating in the ISS successor, and supporting the launch vehicle sector.
24:17 Focusing on Maritime Business: Pledges a European maritime strategy, competitive port infrastructure, support for German shipyards (especially in offshore platforms), implementing the national port strategy, and promoting maritime research.
25:31 Promoting Trade and Foreign Trade: Aims for a pragmatic, rule-based EU trade policy, completing trade and investment agreements quickly (e.g., ratifying agreements with Chile, Mercosur, Mexico), supporting ongoing negotiations (India, Australia, Asian states), striving for a US free trade agreement, and deepening trade with African states.
27:18 Enhancing Economic Security and Resilience: Plans to revise the Foreign Trade Act to effectively impede foreign investments contradicting national interests, implement a national economic security strategy, ensure high safety requirements for critical infrastructure components (favoring "trusted states"), and strengthen support for SMEs against cyberattacks.
28:46 Streamlining Approvals: Proposes a paradigm shift in foreign trade approvals towards random checks and severe penalties for violations, potentially removing the need for prior export permits, to simplify and accelerate processes.
29:27 Revising China Strategy: Will revise the China strategy based on the principle of "derisking" and establish an expert commission for an annual report on economic risks and dependencies.
29:51 Securing Raw Materials: Goals include reducing consumption, better utilizing domestic and European resources, diversifying imports through partnerships, pragmatically implementing a circular economy strategy, promoting domestic extraction (easing approvals), and supporting EU projects for critical raw materials.
31:26 Strengthening Competition Law: Aims for effective application of antitrust law, faster procedures, effective implementation of the Digital Market Act, and giving greater weight to international competitiveness, European sovereignty, and security in European competition law (especially merger control).
32:19 Supporting SMEs, Crafts, and Self-Employed: Plans for a more flexible legal framework, simpler procedures, faster approvals, increased permeability between training/master craftsman/study, countering skilled worker shortages (accelerating work permits), significant bureaucracy reduction, and establishing a digital agency for skilled immigration.
35:17 Reforming Social Welfare: Aims to make social benefits more citizen-friendly by summarizing and better coordinating services (e.g., merging housing benefit and child benefit), creating incentives to earn more alongside benefits, digitizing processes, and establishing a commission for welfare state reforms (by Q4 2025) to propose comprehensive modernization and debureaucratization.
36:05 Combating Child Poverty: Measures include increasing the participation amount of the education and participation package and studying the feasibility of a children's ticket for all child benefit recipients.
47:31 Reforming Basic Security: Transforms the citizen's income system into a "new basic security for job seekers," emphasizing binding rights and obligations for both sides, strengthening job centers, prioritizing placement into gainful employment for those able to work, and toughening sanctions for repeated refusal of reasonable work (aligning with court rulings).
48:58 Abolishing Waiting Period for Assets: The waiting period for assets in the new basic security system will be abolished, linking protected assets to "life performance" and implementing this with minimal bureaucracy.
49:21 Reducing Immigration Incentives in Social Systems: States that incentives in the social systems for immigration must be significantly reduced, and abuse of domestic welfare and by people living abroad must be terminated, facilitating data exchange between social and finance authorities.
50:54 Reaching €15 Minimum Wage: Supports the statutory minimum wage and its development by the Minimum Wage Commission, considering tariff development and 60% of the gross median wage, stating that a €15 minimum wage is reachable by 2026.
51:36 Strengthening Collective Bargaining: Aims for a higher collective bargaining agreement rate (making it the rule), introducing a federal tariff compliance law for federal contracts, and minimizing bureaucracy and controls for its implementation.
52:01 Increasing Working Time Flexibility: Plans to align with the EU working time directive by enabling a weekly maximum working time instead of daily, allowing for better compatibility of family and profession, to be discussed with social partners.
53:00 Tax Incentives for Overtime and Longer Hours: Overtime pay beyond collectively agreed full-time will be tax-free. Additional financial incentives for voluntary longer working are planned, such as tax-free salary up to €2000/month for those working past the statutory retirement age.
54:32 Reforming Pensions: Aims to secure old-age security, maintaining the statutory pension level above 48% until 2031 (offset by tax money). They will introduce an "early start pension" by 2026 and a child pension savings scheme (€10/month for children 6-18) in a funded account.
58:26 Securing Self-Employed for Old Age: Will include all new self-employed not in a compulsory system into the statutory pension insurance in a founder-friendly manner.
58:48 Introducing Mother's Pension: Will grant 3 pension points for every mother, regardless of the children's birth year, financed from tax revenues as recognition of societal performance.
59:17 Advancing Inclusion: Committed to an inclusive society, improving accessibility (public buildings barrier-free by 2035, impacting private sector), establishing competence centers for light language and sign language, creating structures for assistance dogs, and increasing support for people with disabilities entering the general labor market.
1:02:12 Accelerating Planning and Approval: A major focus is the fundamental revision of planning, construction, environmental, procurement, and administrative law to accelerate procedures for infrastructure projects and housing construction, including a European initiative and a National Pact.
1:03:44 Boosting Housing Construction: Aims to make housing affordable and available, boost construction and home ownership through tax relief and debureaucratization, expand social housing, protect tenants, strengthen urban development, and amend the building code to facilitate construction.
1:06:41 Reforming Heating Law: Will abolish the current Heating Act and introduce a new, more flexible and simpler Building Energy Act (GEG) focusing on CO2 prevention, simplifying the link with municipal heat planning, and continuing renovation subsidies.
1:10:12 Modernizing Transport Infrastructure: Plans include introducing financing cycles for transport modes, a 3-pillar financing model, providing resources for road repair backlogs (bridges/tunnels), significantly increasing investments in the German rail network (main/secondary routes, major nodes, large projects), accelerating digitalization and electrification, and shifting more freight to rail.
1:12:05 Expanding Eastern Connectivity: Central transport infrastructure parts to Poland and the Czech Republic are to be expanded rapidly with planning and financing security.
1:13:52 Reforming Railways: A fundamental railway reform is planned medium term, including further unbundling of DB Infrago from the DB Group (within the integrated group) and reorganizing boards for more professional competence.
1:14:48 Strengthening Public Transport: Federal states will fund public transport on a new legal basis, a modernization pact will be launched, and regionalization funds will be used for rail replacement transport.
1:15:24 Continuing the Germany Ticket: The Germany Ticket will continue beyond 2025, with a gradual increase in the new financing proportion from 2029 and clarification of cost division between federal and state governments.
1:16:18 Pursuing Climate Neutrality: Upholds German and European climate targets aiming for climate neutrality by 2045 in Germany, balancing climate protection with economic competitiveness and social balance, focusing primarily on CO2 reduction in Germany complemented by limited negative emissions and credible reductions in non-EU countries.
1:18:18 Utilizing Emissions Trading: Supports CO2 pricing as a central instrument, backs the introduction of ETS2 for equal conditions, aims for a smooth transition, and will use instruments to reduce price jumps for consumers and businesses, returning CO2 revenues through electricity price relief and investment promotion.
20:04 Advancing the Energy Transition: Aims for a transparent, plannable, and pragmatic energy transition, exploiting all renewable energy potential (solar, wind, bio, hydro, geo), strengthening innovative technologies, and ensuring affordability, cost-effectiveness, and supply security.
22:18 Reducing Energy Costs: Plans to reduce energy costs for companies and consumers by at least 5 cents per kilowatt hour through measures like reducing electricity tax and network charges and permanently capping network charges.
23:43 Accelerating Energy Planning: Crucial for the energy transition is debureaucratization and faster planning and approval processes, implementing the Renewable Energy Directive 3 quickly, and streamlining procedures for infrastructure projects with "outstanding public interest."
33:10 Developing a Power Plant Strategy: Will quickly launch technology-open tenders and create a reliable framework for investments in secured performance, planning for the construction of up to 20 GW of gas power plants by 2030 (transitioning to climate-neutral fuels later), and using a technology-open capacity mechanism.
34:31 Enabling Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS/CCU): An immediate legislative package will allow the separation, transport, use, and storage of CO2, especially for hard-to-avoid industrial emissions and gas power plants, recognizing this with outstanding public interest and prioritizing ratification of the London Protocol and bilateral agreements for offshore storage.
35:58 Accelerating Hydrogen Economy: A quick start requires climate-friendly hydrogen from various sources and a long-term transition to climate-neutral hydrogen. They commit to pragmatic national and EU regulations, accelerating production (large and decentralized), expanding infrastructure for imports from all directions, and Germany taking a leading role in EU hydrogen initiatives.
38:06 Maintaining Lignite Exit: The approved exit path for lignite-fired power generation by 2038 is maintained, and promised funds from the Structural Strengthening Act will be provided in full.
2:07:12 Strengthening Finances and Budget: Fiscal policy guidelines emphasize growth and cohesion, strengthening competitiveness, and guaranteeing security. The federal budget is under high consolidation pressure, and solid finances are a commandment of intergenerational justice.
2:07:35 Boosting Corporate Investment and Lowering Tax: An investment booster in the form of declining-balance depreciation (30% for equipment 2025-2027) and a corporate tax reduction in five steps of 1% point each are planned.
2:08:34 Lowering Income Tax: Income tax for small and middle incomes will be lowered by the middle of the legislative period, the gap between child allowances and child benefit will be reduced, and single parents' financial situation will be improved.
2:09:11 Increasing Trade Tax Minimum: The trade tax minimum rate will be increased from 200% to 280% to prevent fictitious relocations of company headquarters to low-tax areas.
2:10:30 Making Overtime Tax-Free: Overtime pay exceeding collectively agreed or oriented full-time work will be tax-free to provide tax incentives for working more.
2:11:50 Increasing Commuter Allowance: The commuter allowance will be permanently increased to 38 cents from the first kilometer as of January 1, 2026.
2:12:04 Supporting Volunteering: Trainer fees and volunteer allowances will be increased, and the exemption limit for commercial business operations for non-profit organizations will be raised.
2:12:57 Reducing VAT in Gastronomy: The sales tax for dining in restaurants will be permanently reduced to 7% as of January 1, 2026.
2:13:24 Reintroducing Agricultural Diesel Refund: The agricultural diesel refund will be fully reintroduced.
2:13:31 Combatting Tax Evasion: Strengthens the fight against tax evasion and financial crime through further legal measures, enhanced financial control of undeclared work (including hiring auditors), and improving IT and measures against VAT fraud.
2:14:50 Reducing Tax Bureaucracy: Commits to tax simplification through typification, simplifications, and pauses to make the tax system more accepted, examining a "working day flat rate" for employees and simplifying tax for pensioners.
2:15:55 Reforming Riester Pension: The current Riester pension will be transformed into a new product, freed from bureaucratic obstacles (e.g., waiving mandatory guarantees), with potential expansion of eligibility and simple state support for low/middle incomes.
2:16:31 Strengthening Anti-Money Laundering: Will prevent money laundering and financial crime by consolidating federal competences, making decisive improvements in combating money laundering (aligned with FATF), closing gaps in the Transparency Register, and creating procedures for assessing suspicious assets.
2:17:54 Capital Marketization: Aims for a powerful capital market as an industrial policy goal, strengthening financial center Germany, advocating for uniform European financial regulation, and developing the investment portfolio strategically.
2:20:09 Creating SME Fund: Old funds from the former bank levy (€2 billion) will be used with the banking industry to create a medium-sized business fund (€10 billion leveraged) for the digital and climate-neutral transformation of German SMEs with limited capital market access.
2:22:26 Reforming Debt Brake: An expert commission will propose a modernization of the debt brake to permanently allow additional investments in strengthening the country, with legislation aiming for completion by the end of 2025.
2:25:29 Establishing Special Infrastructure Fund: A €500 billion special fund for infrastructure and climate neutrality is planned to systematically modernize the country in the coming years (incl. hospitals, schools, bridges, rails), with specific shares for states (€100bn) and the Climate and Transformation Fund (€100bn), aiming for a significant increase in growth and value creation.
2:28:39 Implementing Budget Consolidation: Plans a significant consolidation in this legislative period, including reducing factual administrative expenditure (10% by 2029, exc. security), job cuts in federal administration (8%), reducing external consultant costs, halving federal commissioners, and saving €1 billion in funding programs.
2:32:38 Rebuilding Special Funds: Existing special funds will be checked for necessity, potentially transferred to the federal budget, while the Special Fund Reconstruction Aid 2021 will continue with promised aid.
2:33:05 Excluding Defense Spending from Debt Rule: Defense spending above 1% of GDP is excluded from the debt rule to enable greater responsibility in the changed international security order.
2:34:51 Future Package for States and Municipalities: A future package will strengthen the financial capacity of states and municipalities, ensuring municipal tasks are adequately equipped and new commitments are financially supported, checking municipal compatibility of laws.
2:35:39 Solving Municipal Old Debts: The federal government will contribute €250 million per year in measures supporting states that relieve their municipalities of excessive cash credits, sharing half the cost.
2:36:02 Relieving East German States: The federal government will relieve East German states by taking over another 10% points of the cost allocation between federal and state governments for claims and farming from additional and special pension systems of the accession territory.
2:36:37 Reducing Bureaucracy and Modernizing the State: Aims for a real state reform, comprehensive bureaucracy reduction, and modernization to make the state efficient again and regain citizen trust.
2:38:54 Advancing Digital Administration: Focuses on a "digital first" approach, making administrative services easily accessible digitally via a central "One-stop Shop," introducing citizen accounts and digital identities (EUDI Wallet), and enabling company startups within 24 hours.
2:40:09 Streamlining Federal Administration: Plans administrative consolidation, task criticism, and personnel savings (e.g., 8% staff reduction, halving commissioners), reducing the number of federal authorities through mergers and reducing redundancies.
2:41:27 Improving Interdepartmental Cooperation: Aims to overcome "silo thinking," work through mission-oriented strategies, strengthen interministerial teams, and bundle standardized service tasks (personnel, IT, procurement) in powerful units.
2:42:17 Modernizing Public Service: Focuses on cultural change and modern leadership, opening administrative careers to other disciplines, simplifying career change, making career paths more performance-oriented, and increasing permeability between administration, economy, and science.
2:45:32 Promoting Good Legislation: Commits to thorough, transparent, and practical legislation ("content first, then paragraphs"), conducting practice checks early in the process, involving experts, establishing success indicators for laws, and encouraging experimental clauses and real laboratories.
2:49:10 Implementing Bureaucracy Reduction Program: Launches a national emergency program (by end 2025) to reduce bureaucracy, particularly for SMEs (abolishing appointment obligations, reducing documentation).
2:49:36 Abolishing National Supply Chain Act: The national Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LKSG) will be abolished and replaced by a new law implementing the European directive in a low-bureaucracy and easily enforceable manner, with LKSG reporting obligations immediately removed.
2:53:32 Setting Bureaucracy Reduction Targets: Commits to reducing bureaucratic costs for the economy by 25% (€16 billion) and compliance costs (companies, citizens, administration) by at least €10 billion, with each department responsible for contributing via annual Bureaucracy Reduction Acts.
2:54:44 Strengthening Bureaucracy Brake: Reforms the "One and One Out" rule into a "One in Two Out" rule (requiring two existing regulations to be removed for every one new one), expanding its scope to include costs for citizens and administration and one-time conversion costs.
2:55:05 Strengthening Regulatory Control Council: The National Regulatory Control Council (NKR) is moved back to the Federal Chancellery, made more powerful to check subordinate regulations, and included more in legislative procedures.
2:55:37 Identifying Bureaucracy: A digital bureaucracy portal will be set up for communicating obstacles and suggestions, and each federal ministry will perform regular practice checks.
2:56:12 Promoting Trust over Regulation: Aims to reduce documentation obligations (especially for crafts, retail, agriculture, gastronomy, hotels), increasingly relying on sanctioning violations rather than requiring regular evidence.
2:58:14 Reducing EU Bureaucracy: The federal government will actively work at the EU level for comprehensive and impact-oriented bureaucracy reduction, supporting higher ambitions (e.g., a 1-in-2-out rule, significant cost reduction targets for SMEs), and preventing unnecessary burdens from European regulations (e.g., related to sustainability reporting, supply chains, CBAM) by avoiding "gold plating" and ensuring low-bureaucracy implementation of EU law.
3:00:47 Modernizing Justice System: A "new pact for the rule of law" with the states will make the justice system future-proof through improved digitalization (joint Federal Justice Cloud, Justice portal with services, AI use), streamlining procedures, and strengthening personnel.