How could welfare reforms in Germany affect you?
and other unemployment benefits are
is to be reformed (read cut) in order to save money, according to statements made by Chancellor Friedrich Merz to
ARD
in a
televised interview
on Sunday.
Specifically, Merz spoke in favour of noticeable cuts to
Bürgergeld,
including potentially enforcing a cap on payments towards rent.
"It should be called basic security (
Grundsicherung
) and no longer citizen's money (
Bürgergeld
)...' Merz said, adding that he envisions the government saving more than one or two billion euros via cuts to welfare cash benefits.
Federal Labour Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) reportedly wants to present a draft for a
Bürgergeld
reform after the summer break.
What would a
Bürgergeld
reform look like?
Among the main points Merz addressed on camera were a cap on the amount of rental costs that can be covered, as wekk as adjustments intended to stop people from collecting unemployment money on top of undeclared or other part-time work.
A cap on rental costs could have a particular impact on people living in tight housing markets, such as in Berlin, Munich or other major cities, where housing costs are often high and more affordable options aren't readily available
READ ALSO:
Germans taking on personal debt at 'nearly twice the European average'
The Chancellor also suggested that in some cases, like immediately after losing one's job, he could imagine increasing the unemployment benefits rate in some cases.
Merz' comments, taken along with similar comments from Federal Labour Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD), suggest a looming cuts to Germany's welfare benefits system.
For her part, Bas has also spoken of a broad reorganisation of
Bürgergeld
to make it 'more targeted and better at getting people into work', according to a
report
by
Merkur.de.
The Labour Minister has also spoken out in favour of stricter rules for welfare recipients, including sanctions for people
who miss appointments at the job centre
.
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Welfare politicised
Germany's long-valued welfare benefits, and
Bürgergeld
in particular, have become issues of political contention in recent months.
The far-right Alternative for Germany party has taken to pushing a narrative that immigrants in Germany are milking the country's welfare system, despite
evidence to the contrary
.
READ ALSO:
Fact-check - Are immigrants in Germany taking advantage of the welfare state?
It's not surprising that the conservative Christian Union parties under Merz' leadership are pushing for social welfare reforms, but exactly how far they will push remains to be seen.
The black-red government was confronted with a
substantial hole in the federal budget
as soon as it came to power, and having run on plans to cut certain taxes and raise spending on defence and infrastructure, they are limited in where they can look for potential savings.
But exactly which benefits will be capped or cut, and by how much, will ultimately come down to the compromises reached in debates between Merz' conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (historically regarded as defenders of the welfare state).
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Hungary: Orban's new hate campaign against Ukraine – DW – 07/15/2025
After an ethnic Hungarian conscript died in unexplained circumstances in Ukraine, Hungary's leader has renewed his campaign against the neighboring country. DW's research shows he has been spreading falsified videos. Hungary has only just concluded a months-long campaign against Ukraine aimed at blocking it from joining the EU. The autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban, and his political apparatus have been portraying their neighboring country as a mafia state, overrun with hordes of dangerous criminals who would rob, kidnap, and kill Hungarian people. If people thought this was the nadir of Orban's anti-Ukraine propaganda, they are in for a disappointment. The Hungarian leadership is portraying the death of a recruit of Hungarian origin in Ukraine on July 6 as an attack on the Hungarian nation as a whole, declaring Ukraine to be a sort of evil empire. And he's taking this stance, even though the circumstances of the man's death are not clear. 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After huge US cuts, who pays for aid in the Middle East now? – DW – 07/15/2025
For the first time in 30 years, in 2024, some of the world's biggest spenders on aid and development cut funding. Now aid organizations in the Middle East are forced to seek new, potentially more demanding, donors. Ask around various civil society organizations working in the Middle East and the answer is always the same. "Nobody really knows what's happening," one project manager running a Syria-based project told DW about the US cuts in aid funding. "They haven't put a complete stop to it yet so we're just spending the money on a monthly basis and hoping for the best." "We still don't know if we're going to get the funding we were promised this year," the founder of an Iraqi journalists' network in Baghdad said. "We probably won't be able to pay some of our journalists. Right now, we're approaching other organizations to try to replace the money." Neither interviewee wanted their names published because they didn't want to criticize their donors publicly. They are not alone. Since US President Donald Trump took power, he has slashed US funding for what's known as "official development aid," or ODA. Often simply called foreign aid,the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Developmentdefines ODA as "government aid that promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries." ODA can be bilateral — given from country to country — or multilateral, where funds are pooled by an organization like the UN, then disbursed. The US is not the only country cutting ODA. Even before what insiders described as the US' "chaotic" budget cuts, reductions in ODA were a longer-term pattern. Global ODA fell by over 7% in 2024, as European nations and the UK also reduced ODA in favor of channeling more money into defense. Last year marked the first time in nearly 30 years that major donors like France, Germany, the UK and the US all cut ODA. 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Over the last two decades, four Gulf states — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait — have been internationally significant donors. "For example, Saudi Arabia is already offering substantial support to Syria," Loewe told DW. "They have been supporting Lebanon to quite a degree and they would definitely be ready to pay a lot of the costs of reconstruction in Gaza, provided there is an acceptable agreement on a ceasefire." Most of that ODA has gone to Arab countries, although Qatar and Kuwait have also funded work in Turkey, Afghanistan and some African countries. Hardly any Gulf money goes into what are called "pooled" funds like those run by the UN. Most is bilateral, from country to country, because the Gulf states tend to use their ODA in a more transactional way. That is, as a diplomatic tool where it ties into different Gulf states' often-competing foreign policy aims. "Aid recipients who are considered politically important for Gulf donors tend to receive more aid," Khaled AlMezaini, a professor at the UAE's Zayed University, wrote in a recent analysis. For example, despite waging war on parts of Yemen from 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also the country's biggest donors. But as Harvard's Bollettino points out, ODA is not meant to be political. That goes against basic humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality. "The essential problem with instrumentalized aid is that it's just as likely to be a catalyst of conflict and violence as a source of peace and security," he argues. "The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — where 'humanitarian aid' being delivered to starving civilians has resulted in hundreds of Palestinians being killed — is a case in point." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
