BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – In a survey, a clear majority of citizens are against increasing the diets of the 630 members of the Bundestag this year. According to the representative survey by the YouGov institute on behalf of the German Press Agency, 85 percent are of the opinion that MPs should forego an increase given the current situation. Only 7 percent were in favor of the increase, 8 percent were undecided.
The diets are actually supposed to increase by 497 euros on July 1st – to around 12,330 euros. This results from an automatic mechanism anchored in the law on members of parliament, according to which the adjustment of salaries is linked to the development of average wages.
In the survey, the negative attitude towards this was highest among AfD supporters (93 percent), but sympathizers from the SPD and CDU/CSU also clearly voted for MPs to abstain at 87 and 85 percent respectively.
SPD wants to forego an increase – Union refers to consultations
The demand for a waiver also comes from the coalition camp. “Citizens, communities and companies are facing major challenges and we are having tough discussions about austerity. It would send the wrong signal if MPs received more money,” said Johannes Fechner, one of the parliamentary managing directors of the SPD parliamentary group, to the German Press Agency.
He has already sent a bill necessary for the one-time suspension to Union MPs. “I am optimistic that we will be able to suspend the diet increase in time.” In general, Fechner would like to retain the automatic mechanism linked to general wage developments and reassess the situation in the coming year.
The Union faction has not yet made a final decision. Its First Parliamentary Managing Director Steffen Bilger explained that the existing mechanism creates transparency and traceability. The diets could also decrease by being linked to the average wages in the previous year. “The proposal to suspend this mechanism extraordinarily came from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group,” the CDU politician told the dpa. Discussions on this are currently underway in the parliamentary group committees and with the SPD.
When do diets go down and when do they go up?
Members’ salaries have only fallen once in the history of the Bundestag, namely during the Corona pandemic in 2021. At that time, the nominal wage index had declined – and salaries have been automatically adjusted to this every year since 2014. Before the new regulations, there were regularly heated debates about the amount of the diets.
By firmly linking it to wage developments, the Bundestag wanted to avoid such discussions and prevent the impression that MPs were self-serving.
According to the MPs Act, the amount of MPs’ compensation – currently around 11,833 euros – is based on the salary of a judge at a highest federal court. The Bundestag speaks of officials who work with comparable responsibilities and workloads as members of parliament.
On July 1st last year, the diets were increased by around 600 euros. During the Corona pandemic, MPs waived the automatic increase in 2020 because of the poor economic situation. Zero rounds have occurred more frequently in parliamentary history.
Abolish automatic increases entirely or keep them?
The opposition Green group is calling for the diet increase to be suspended this year, but for the adjustment mechanism to be generally retained. “He ensures that diet adjustments are transparent and based on clear criteria,” said the Greens’ legal policy spokesman, Helge Limburg. At the same time, the mechanism offers the scope to suspend the increase in extreme situations.
The left-wing faction, on the other hand, has already introduced a bill to abolish the automatism completely. “Members of Parliament are paid more than adequately, there is no reason to set higher and higher sums here,” says parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek. If there were higher diets this year, the Left MPs would donate them.
The AfD has also presented a proposal to completely abolish the automatic increase in diets, said Stephan Brandner, one of the parliamentary group’s managing directors. We also support efforts by other factions to do this. At the same time, if the Bundestag has done a good job and the citizens and the country are doing well, increases can be debated and voted on from time to time. But that is not the case at the moment.
YouGov poll details
YouGov surveyed a total of 2,179 people aged 18 and over who live in Germany between May 8th and 11th, 2026. The institute specifies a statistical error tolerance depending on the size of the shares between 2.1 and 0.92 percentage points./mib/DP/zb