The AfD would like to make the Day of Prayer and Repentance free of charge for employees in Saxony. The AfD parliamentary group has submitted a motion to this effect to parliament. It said that the discrimination must finally come to an end. According to the motion, the Saxon government should advocate at federal level and to the other federal states that if the Day of Prayer and Repentance is retained as a public holiday, increased contributions for long-term care insurance will no longer be due in future.
The Day of Prayer and Repentance is a holiday of the Protestant Church, which is always celebrated on the first Wednesday after the Day of Mourning. This year, it falls on November 19. According to the Protestant church, services on this day focus on reflection, critical life assessment and reorientation. "Failure and guilt, omissions and wrong decisions can be brought before God in prayer. The holiday also serves to reflect on social errors."
Saxony went it alone on the Day of Prayer and Repentance
In 1994, the Bundestag decided to abolish the Day of Prayer and Repentance as a public holiday nationwide in order to finance long-term care insurance. Only Saxony, with its then Minister President Kurt Biedenkopf (CDU), opposed this. While the day has been a normal working day in all other federal states since then, employees in Saxony have the day off. However, in order to finance the day off, they have to pay 0.5 percent more of their gross salary into care insurance than employees in the rest of the country.
In essence, the aim was to compensate employers for the additional burden of an extra public holiday. Since then, they have had to pay half a percentage point less into long-term care insurance in Germany. According to the AfD, however, the argument that employers in Saxony are additionally burdened falls flat when looking at the number of public holidays in other federal states. In comparison with Bavaria and its twelve public holidays, for example, there are only eleven in Saxony, emphasized the AfD.
"What's more, the disadvantages of East German employees compared to West German employees continue to exist because the wage levels are still strikingly different 35 years after reunification," writes the AfD in the explanatory memorandum to its motion. Employees in Saxony would be additionally burdened with higher non-wage labor costs compared to the West German federal states due to the Day of Prayer and Repentance - on average 224.24 euros per year.
Dancing events banned on the Day of Prayer and Repentance in Saxony
It remains to be seen whether all Protestant Christians in Saxony actually use the Day of Prayer and Repentance for special reflection. As it is under special protection, "public dance events and other public amusements that run counter to the serious character of these days" are prohibited from 3 a.m. to midnight.
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