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Politics
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Merkel gives self and ministers pay rise

Published: 16 May 12 15:22 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20120516-42579.html

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will soon have an extra €930 in her pocket each month, after the country's cabinet decided on Wednesday to award themselves their first pay rise for over a decade.

Merkel, her ministers and their parliamentary secretaries of state will see their wages rise in three stages between now and August 2013, until they all get 5.7 percent more. It is the first pay raise that the German cabinet has taken in twelve years.

The chancellor's total pay is set to rise from €16,152 per month before tax to around €17,016. This does not include her €1,022 “special duties” allowance.

Ministers' pay will rise by €750 euros to around €13,795 a month. This will amount to a bump of around €9,000 over a year.

Until now, ministers’ wages have been set relative to those of civil servants. And despite considerable protest about the idea of separating them, particularly over the past two years, the cabinet decided to go ahead with the change.

Merkel, recently named the world's most powerful woman by Forbes Magazine, is famously down-to-earth and was snapped earlier this month shopping on her own for groceries.

She has been the chief advocate of austerity in the eurozone during the debt crisis, earning her criticism from some quarters, notably Greece and more recently France, whose new leader Francois Hollande wants to focus on growth.

AFP/DPA/The Local/jcw

What do you think? Leave your comment below.


Your comments about this article:

16:59 May 16, 2012 by Englishted
Austerity begins at home does it ?,

Why have they moved it from civil servants pay and does that mean they have had no rise for 10 years either.

"famously down-to-earth and was snapped earlier this month shopping on her own for groceries." Oh please !!!
16:07 May 17, 2012 by blackboot11
Whatever the reasoning may be for this decision, after months of pushing for austerity eveywhere eles in the EU, the timing of this pay increase is just bad.
23:50 May 17, 2012 by Navigator_B
The timing is even worse today when the new French government is cutting the salaries of the president, prime minister and ministers by 30%. They've gone from being paid more than their German counterpatrs to being paid less than them.  Merkel will never forgive Hollande for that. She'll miss the days when she looked  austere in comparison with Sarkozy with his bling and supermodel aristocratic wife.
00:41 May 18, 2012 by Whipmanager
If you look at what the pay is I think she is underpaid. If you look at what the President of the US is making, and he is way over paid, he is around $400,000 a year. Merkel, who is the leader of one of the best run economies in the world is making a bit more than half of that. Add in her monthly expense amount and she gets a whopping 216,000 Euros. That is not good.

If you look at the whining of other European leaders, if they are complaining about what they make, their economies are in the toilet and aren't worth what they are already getting.

An example is that the Leader of Great Britain was making about 187,600 pounds Sterling in 2010, or about $298,284 dollars, or about 222,000 Euros. Doesn't seem to me that My Dear Angela, who is less lvoed in Germany, should be paid much less than the British Prime Minister. In fact, how do you attract the best leaders (not saying she is the best) if you pay them pennies. I think you could Fix Greece if you paid the top few leaders more- you could get better qualified people to run fr and get elected.
17:00 May 18, 2012 by mountbud
Well done Angela and Co; 10 yrs and no pay increase for a country of 80 million citizens.My little country of 4.5 million and our prime minister(Enda Kenny) reduced his salary from 280,000.00 to 200,000.00 in recent times.But of course he is doing a great job?????(at least thats what they like to tell us)
21:31 May 20, 2012 by Kennneth Ingle
This is all very disgusting!

Bank Managers receive bonuses despite loosing their customers money, so why should Merkel and Co., not obtain higher incomes for leading their country into ruin?

Does anybody ever ask the taxpayers how taxes should be spent? The elections give little choice! Democracy remains a farce in countries where all parties are only interested in robbing the poor to feed the rich (especially, in the first line, themselves).

Lower income groups do not even keep up with the inflation rates these days, but fhey are told the state has no cash. Armes Deutschland!
06:18 October 23, 2012 by SpanishPaddy
I think she is entitled to more, seeing as how Kenny and Gilmore have slavishly followed her dictation, to save from ruin, German banks that chose to speculate on Ireland¦#39;s so called, Property Boom.

She in return should award these quislings the Iron Cross, in recognition of their gallant attempt to impose the final solution, on the Irish Nation.

Thankfully it¦#39;s not by gas, though some might think that was more humane than the savage cuts in, Education, Medicine, Benefits and the imposition of the Household Charge, to be followed by the, Privatisation of Water and Sewage, with the profits from same going to Multinational Corporations not the Local Authorities in Ireland.
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