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SPD-Minister Nahles: “the lives of people better”

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SPD-Minister Nahles: “the lives of people better”

Justice is a key concept in the understanding of politics by Andrea Nahles. At the Global Media Forum, the working language and the social Minister with the DW on pension, property tax, and the credibility of the SPD.

DW: you went very early in the policy and remained. What is your guiding principle for your Actions in the policy?

Andrea Nahles: be Joyful, do Good, and the sparrows whistle.

Do good – for you also, that you are in the coalition, the Minister for the SPD important laws has brought? The minimum wage and pension with 63?

I’ve actually always been social and political studies. Early on, even when I was Juso-Chairman, I fought for more training places. When I came in 1998 in the Bundestag, I went in the Ausschaus for labour and social Affairs. I see it as a privilege that I was able to the minimum wage fight.

My goal is to make people’s lives easier and better. This is not always possible. Sometimes things develop differently, than you think. But more often it succeeds, and that’s why I’m still very satisfied.

With “lighter and better”, you mean mainly just if I have understood this correctly?

Yes, I understand the meaning of fair. That is to say: One gets the reward one has earned and not cheated. That’s what I mean with “the life of the people easier”. We’ve got four million people now have a wage with a much better life. This is not to say that you have become rich. But you can cope so much better. This is, for me, the “life of the people easier.”

Million benefit from the minimum wage. Andrea Nahles has him “fighting through”

Let us discuss this approach talk. It is just for people who are in Germany at some point the pension that those who earn little, are dependent in old age on social support? The will be very many.

This is a justice gap! We have a basic backup introduced for people who have worked very little or not at all. But those who worked for 30, 35 or 40 years and little have earned, which we have made no offer. Do not come to a reasonable pension. That’s why we are talking about how we could give these people a so-called life annuity. Since I’m going to make this year a proposal in autumn.

That it has come and will come, but it was long foreseeable, and the SPD has actually in government. You would not be able to discover earlier and also change?

We have partnered with this basic social security pension, a major justice gap. We have also sought to make a generations-a fair pension. Now the Baby-Boomer Generation, a huge number of people at the same time in retirement. With a smaller number of people, the need to Finance it. We are addressed.

This Problem has been solved – but in a way that many are satisfied: The pension level decreases, the contributions are on the rise. Pure pension technically the Problem is solved. But whether it is fair enough? You may say: It is right to talk about the level of pensions. Also, I’m going to make a suggestion that we need to look at the pension level is still critical and stable.

Let us in justice. Is it fair that in Germany people can make a living from their assets, only 25 percent taxes on the capital gains to pay?

No. I am of the opinion that that is absolutely the predicament. We need to tax labor and capital is equal to the best. That’s why I was also, as at the time it was introduced, skeptical and have made no secret of the fact.

Your party chief Sigmar Gabriel will not pull with the proposal of a wealth tax in the next election campaign. The meets with your approval?

This is not yet decided finally. But Sigmar Gabriel has said clearly that he wants to raise the capital gains tax and that we tax actual work and capital is equal to the best. The wealth tax is already been very often required to, since it was abolished. It was, however, never implemented so far. At some point, people start to ask: “Can we believe you?”

We either do it eventually or we leave it. We should decide then, but honestly! Always announce and then not make it, at the end of unbelievable. Therefore, it is still a discussion in the SPD. Unfortunately, there are constitutional provisions, which are not easy to implement. Therefore, you have to talk honestly about whether we can fix it at all.

The “life annuity”? Nahles wants to in the autumn a proposal

They also fight for more flexible working hours in Germany. How flexible you can design your working hours, to be as often as possible with your little daughter?

As the head of the Whole, it has, of course, easier. But it must also work for the employees and the officials with me in the Ministry. It must be all the more working time sovereignty. Not only flexibility for the Benefit of the company, but also more flexibility for the Individual.

Since we need to ran and since we need to communicate to each other, with employers and employees. But this is possible. Just due to the digitalization, there are new opportunities to work from home, to control equipment from your home, it is absolutely possible now.

In your graduation time, you have specified Occupation: “housewife or Chancellor”. Now you are in the job request, the Chancellor is already pretty close, but in the wrong party. At 19 percent, is not a Chancellor. What is wrong in the SPD?

Just you wait! This is not going to change at the push of a button. We need, obviously, a long-term strategy. We discussed about it yesterday. We draw from our government time in the mid-2000s is still a large credibility deficit. People attest us that we are making good measures. The knowledge that we have done in this government.

But you hold the tactics. That’s why we have to do trust work. This is, in my opinion, only by making policies that really solve problems. We need to be able to make it credible over a longer period of time. And we need to create – in the tax policy, for example, with those who do not fulfil their responsibility in this society.

Andrea Nahles is, since 2013, labour and social Affairs Minister in the Federal government of CDU/CSU and the SPD. From 2009 to 2013, the politician from Rhineland-Palatinate, General Secretary of the SPD.

The questions Thomas Spahn.

You can see the Interview in full length on Sunday (19.06.2016) on DW-TV in the series “the Interview”.

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