Two months after winning an absolute majority in elections, the outcome of a final 17-hour round of negotiating has finally allowed Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel to sign a programme for her next four years in government banded together with the Social Democrats.
It includes an 8.50 euro national hourly minimum wage from 2015 under conditions, and from 2017 throughout Germany.
Today, some 5.5 million people in Germany are paid less than 8.50 euros per hour. The measure is supposed to wean the working poor off supplementary social aid payments. A limit has been set on temporary workers' contracts; after 18 months they have to become fixed jobs, and they must be paid the same as a permanent employee after nine months in the same job.
Companies quoted on the stock exchange that have a works council will have to have at least three out of ten seats on their non-executive boards filled by women.
Full pensions for people who have worked for 45 years can now start at age 63 instead of 67, although conditions may apply in some cases.
In keeping with conservative dogma, taxes will not be raised, but the Grand Coalition agreement commits to investing 23 billion euros by 2017, of which six billion is to go into schools and creches, and into research and infrastructure.
Investment in transport infrastructure is to be substantially increased, to be funded by expanding a toll on trucks and introducing a motorway toll on foreign-registered cars as of next year - though this is controversial at a European level.
Power generated from renewable sources will be increased from the 25 percent requirement today to between 40 and 45 percent by 2025 and 55-60 percent by 2035.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) successfully negotiated providing for double nationality. The children of foreign parents born in Germany who grew up in Germany may now have two passports. This will apply notably to the Turkish community - Germany's biggest immigrant group, numbering some three million people.
Kai-Uwe Müller is a market specialist from the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin. Euronews asked him what he made of the deal.
CLICK HERE to read more.
Source: Euronews
