Pascal Reddig

Pascal Reddig (born 10 April 1995 in Gelnhausen, Hesse) is a German lawyer and a politician of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). He has been a member of the Bundestag for constituency 179, Hanau, since the 21st Bundestag held its constitutive sitting on 25 March 2025, the thirtieth day after the federal election of 23 February 2025. The Bundestag lists him as Roman Catholic and married, and gives his occupation as a lawyer.

He took the Abitur in 2013 at the Franziskanergymnasium Kreuzburg in Großkrotzenburg and studied law at the University of Bayreuth and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz as a scholarship holder of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. He passed the first state examination in law in 2019, worked from 2019 to 2021 as an office manager and research assistant in the Bundestag, completed a legal clerkship at the Hanau regional court from 2021 to 2023, passed the second state examination in 2023, and has practised since 2024 at a Frankfurt firm specialising in press and media law. He joined the CDU and its youth organisation, the Young Union, in 2011 and has been a deputy federal chairman of the Young Union since 2018. In local government he sat on the Rodenbach municipal council from 2016 to 2019, has been a Hanau city councillor and chairman of the CDU group there since 2021, and was a member of the Main-Kinzig district council from 2021 to 2025.

In the federal election of 23 February 2025 he won the direct mandate in Hanau. The CDU received 45,346 first votes there, 31.96 percent of valid first votes, ahead of the Social Democratic Party of Germany on 35,906 (25.3 percent). Of 175,243 eligible voters, 143,429 cast a ballot, a turnout of 81.8 percent. On the second vote the CDU led the constituency with 40,878 votes (28.7 percent), followed by the Alternative for Germany and the SPD. The CDU/CSU parliamentary group's Young Group — Union members who were under 35 on election day, then 18 people — elected him its chairman unanimously at its constitutive meeting on 25 March 2025.

In the 21st Bundestag he is a full member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs and of the Committee on Culture and Media, the CDU/CSU group's coordinator (Obmann) on labour and social affairs, and a deputy member of the Health Committee. In October 2025 he led the Young Group's objection to the pension bill of the CDU/CSU–SPD coalition under Chancellor Friedrich Merz: the group said that extending the safeguard of a 48 percent pension level past 2031 was not in the coalition agreement, would cost more than 115 billion euros between 2032 and 2040, and would be the most expensive social law of the century and a lasting burden on the younger generation. The Bundestag passed the package on 5 December 2025 by 318 votes to 224, with 53 abstentions; seven of 208 Union members voted against it. Reddig was among them and told the chamber that the bill ran against his fundamental convictions, against what he had gone into politics to do, and against generational fairness. The member's Bundestag biography, which the parliament notes is based on the member's own information, lists him as deputy chairman of the federal government's old-age security commission from January to June 2026.

Early life and education

Childhood and family

Pascal Reddig was born on 10 April 1995 in Gelnhausen. The biography published by the German Bundestag, which states that the entries rest on members' own information, also describes him as Roman Catholic and married. He grew up in Rodenbach, a municipality of Niederrodenbach and Oberrodenbach in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis in Hesse. The Hanauer Anzeiger has called him a native of Rodenbach who grew up there, reported that he discussed a Bundestag candidacy with his mother, and quoted him as saying that he did not come from a political family. In February 2025 the paper wrote that he had lived in Rodenbach with his mother and called him the son of an Erzieherin, a state-trained childcare educator. On his own website he writes that she was in paid work and raising him alone, that he took on responsibility early, that his first money came from delivering newspapers, and that he played football for Germania Niederrodenbach, later table tennis for TV Oberrodenbach, and the drums; he also writes that he went to primary school in Rodenbach.

Schooling

The Bundestag biography dates his Abitur, the general qualification for university entrance, to 2013 at the Franziskanergymnasium Kreuzburg in Großkrotzenburg. The school describes itself as a private Gymnasium in church sponsorship: founded in 1895 as a Franciscan college at Watersleyde in the Netherlands, it moved in 1967 to Großkrotzenburg, onto the site of the former Gymnasium Africanum. The Hanauer Anzeiger likewise reported that he had taken the Abitur at the Kreuzburg-Gymnasium, and passed on his account that a teacher there, whom he referred to as Herr Reichert, had awakened his interest in politics.

University and state examinations

He studied law at the University of Bayreuth and at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. The Hanauer Anzeiger has also reported law studies in Bayreuth and Mainz. Under the German Judges Act, qualification for judicial office requires a university law degree closed by a first examination—a university special-subject examination plus a state examination in the compulsory subjects—and a two-year preparatory service (Referendariat) closed by a second state examination. The Bundestag biography states that during his studies he held a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, that he passed the first juridical state examination in 2019, and that a legal traineeship from 2021 to 2023, which it locates at the Landgericht Hanau, was followed by the second state examination in 2023. The foundation, affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union, describes those study grants as support for students it selects for academic ability and for social or political engagement. On his website he writes that he began in Bayreuth and continued in Mainz, that he passed the first examination mit Prädikat—a result the Bundestag entry does not record—and that as a student he worked at a research unit on family businesses at Bayreuth and in the constituency offices of CDU members of the Bundestag and the Landtag of Hesse from the Main-Kinzig area.

Legal career

Bundestag staff work

After the first state examination in law in 2019, Pascal Reddig worked in the Bundestag as an office manager and research assistant (Büroleiter und wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter). The biography published by parliament, which notes that the biographical details rest on members' own statements, dates that post from 2019 to 2021. The Hanauer Anzeiger later identified the member as Katja Leikert of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, the Bundestag member he later sought to succeed in the Hanau constituency. Its July 2024 report said that he had worked in her Bundestag office between the first and second state examinations, and a profile note in the same article described him as her office manager for three years. The newspaper's three-year figure and the 2019–2021 span in the parliamentary biography do not coincide. When he sought the nomination to succeed Leikert, he told the paper that the office meant he knew what a Bundestag mandate involved.

Legal clerkship

From 2021 to 2023 Reddig completed the Referendariat, the practical stage of German legal training, attached to the Landgericht Hanau, and in 2023 he passed the second state examination.

Entrance of the joint building of the Amtsgericht and Landgericht Hanau.

The qualification for judicial office, which the Federal Lawyers' Act requires for admission as a Rechtsanwalt, is acquired by completing a university law degree with the first examination and then this preparatory service with the second state examination. Under the German Judiciary Act the preparatory service lasts two years and must include training at an ordinary court in civil matters, with a public prosecutor's office or a criminal court, in an administrative authority and with a lawyer, together with elective placements. In Hesse the president of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt is the higher training authority and assigns each trainee to a regional court, which may also place the trainee at a local court. Reddig's own account lists stations at the Landgericht Hanau, the Hanau public prosecutor's office, the Hessian Ministry of the Interior, and two firms for press and media law, one in Berlin and one in Frankfurt. He describes the second examination only as successfully passed; no published source gives a grade. Media Kanzlei, the Frankfurt firm that later employed him, states that the clerkship was in the Hanau regional-court district and that, as a trainee, he worked both there and at another press-and-media firm.

Admission and press-and-media practice

Admission is granted by a regional bar (Rechtsanwaltskammer). It takes effect when that bar hands over its certificate, which it may do only after the applicant has taken the professional oath and shown professional-indemnity cover, and it makes the lawyer a member of the admitting bar. The Bundestag biography says Reddig has practised since 2024 as a lawyer in a firm for press and media law. In the register of members' outside interests, the professional activity before his membership is entered as "Media Kanzlei, Frankfurt am Main, Rechtsanwalt." By July 2024 the Hanauer Anzeiger was describing him as a lawyer at a Frankfurt firm which, like him, specialized in press and media law. The firm lists him as an employed lawyer at its Frankfurt office, states that he is admitted to the Rechtsanwaltskammer Frankfurt am Main, and states that he is released from the firm's work for the Bundestag mandate.

Christian Democratic Union and Young Union

Local party offices

Pascal Reddig’s Bundestag biography, which the parliament says rests on members’ own information, records membership of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Junge Union (JU) since 2011. The JU is the joint youth organisation of the CDU and the Bavarian Christian Social Union. The Offenbach-Post later reported that he had joined the CDU at 15 and had held local offices since 2011.

The biography lists him as chairman of the JU association for Erlensee and Rodenbach from 2012 to 2015. In January 2015 the Hanauer Anzeiger wrote that the 19-year-old student had been confirmed unanimously, with Marina Lehmann and Nico Jung as deputies. That November, after four years, he did not stand again. An account carried by Vorsprung Online said the reason was the acting district chair he had held since July; the meeting elected the 18-year-old Nico Jung, and Reddig remained an assessor.

In the Main-Kinzig-Kreis he became acting JU district chairman in July 2015 after Andy Wenzel, in the post since 2012, stepped down for lack of time. Delegates in Großkrotzenburg elected him in February 2016 with 95 percent of the vote. The biography dates the chairmanship to 2016–2019. By December 2020 Jannik Marquart held the post.

By October 2018 he was also deputy chairman of the Rodenbach CDU and of its group on the municipal council. On 12 December 2018 the local party elected him, then 23, to succeed Bernd Schminke, who had led the association for five years and had resigned for professional reasons; Eberhard Wiegelmann became deputy chairman. In December 2019 Reddig gave up the chair for personal reasons. Members elected Patrick Weber, then 34, and Wiegelmann continued as deputy.

Deputy federal chairmanship

The Deutschlandtag elects the JU federal executive. In October 2018 in Kiel, shortly before Landtag elections in Bavaria and Hesse, about 300 delegates re-elected Paul Ziemiak as federal chairman with 91.1 percent. Local reports of the same congress, reproducing a JU announcement, said that Reddig, then 23, was elected a deputy federal chairman of an organisation then put at about 110,000 members.

After the CDU made Ziemiak general secretary, an extraordinary Deutschlandtag on 16 March 2019 elected Tilman Kuban, previously JU chairman in Lower Saxony, to succeed him. Reddig remained a deputy. At the 2020 Deutschlandtag, held entirely online, a Main-Kinzig report said Kuban and Reddig were both re-elected, with about 300 delegates rather than the usual gathering of about 1,000, and that Reddig had drafted the lead motion on learning and work in a digital age as chairman of the JU’s federal commission on education, research and innovation.

Kuban did not stand again in 2022, citing the age limit. At the Deutschlandtag in Fulda the JU reported that delegates elected Johannes Winkel, its chairman in North Rhine-Westphalia since 2020, with 86.96 percent, and named Alexander Attensberger, Franziska Lammert, Anna Köhler and Reddig as deputies and Anna Kreye as treasurer. A regional account of that weekend called it Reddig’s third election and said that in the preceding years he had been responsible inside the JU for pensions, labour and health.

At the 2024 Deutschlandtag in Halle (Saale), Winkel was confirmed with 239 of 266 valid votes. Deutschlandfunk cited the JU’s own figure of about 90,000 members. A report from eastern Hesse noted the re-election of the two Hessian members of the federal executive, Fabian Beine and Reddig. The Offenbach-Post, covering Reddig’s nomination days later as a Bundestag candidate, reported that he had been confirmed as deputy federal chairman with 90.7 percent.

The JU states that the executive elected at the Deutschlandtag of 16–18 October 2026 in Bonn again includes Reddig as deputy chairman for Hesse, alongside Julien Jopp (Lower Saxony), Konrad Körner (Bavaria) and Ann-Cathrin Simon (Baden-Württemberg). Coverage that week identified him in the same office: Die Zeit quoted him before the meeting, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung named him among JU office-holders who would lose out if poor national polling were repeated at the next election. Chancellor Friedrich Merz addressed about 300 delegates.

Social-security commissions

The Bundestag biography says that, as deputy federal chairman, Reddig has chaired the JU’s federal commission on social security. Reports of the congresses show the brief changing: education, research and innovation in 2020, and pensions, labour and health by 2022. The biography also lists membership of the CDU’s federal specialist committee on education, research and innovation from 2019 to 2021, and of its basic-programme commission on social security from 2022 to 2024.

On 7 May 2024 a CDU federal party congress adopted the party’s fourth basic programme unanimously. The CDU described the preceding work as that of a programme commission and ten specialist commissions; its announcement of the vote did not publish a membership list for the social-security commission. The biography further lists Reddig as a member of the federal committee “Neuer Generationenvertrag, Sozialstaat und Inklusion”, constituted in Berlin on 24 November 2025. The CDU names Wiebke Winter as chair, Johannes Winkel as deputy chair and Mathias Hübscher as executive director, and describes the remit as the welfare state and inclusion, including what it calls generational fairness and the financeability of social benefits. Reddig is not on the published list of officers.

Local politics

Rodenbach and the Main-Kinzig district

Reddig's first municipal mandate was in Rodenbach, in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis. In November 2015 the local Christian Democratic Union (CDU) placed the then 20-year-old student, a Young Union chair, second on its council list, behind Eberhard Wiegelmann. On 6 March 2016 the CDU took 32.9 percent and 10 of 31 seats. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) kept an absolute majority of 18 seats, the Free Democratic Party held three, and turnout was 55.5 percent. His Bundestag biography, from his own account, records membership from 2016 to 2019.

At the district election of 14 March 2021 he was CDU list candidate number 23, with 39,037 personal votes. The CDU won 26.22 percent and 23 of 87 seats in the Kreistag; turnout was 49.37 percent. By personal votes he ranked 27th, outside those 23 seats. His declaration of interests nevertheless records a Kreistag seat ending on 31 December 2025. That end date matches Hanau's removal from the district under a statute of 3 March 2025, which made the city district-free from 1 January 2026; the Darmstadt regional council later approved the contract on the remaining county tasks.

Hanau city council

On the same day in 2021 Hanau elected a new Stadtverordnetenversammlung. The SPD led with 31.8 percent and 19 of 59 seats; the CDU took 25.4 percent and 15, Reddig among them. Turnout was 42.96 percent. The unpaid assembly is the city's highest organ: it decides the budget and by-laws, elects the Magistrat except the directly elected mayor, and oversees that executive.

Hanau's city council, elected in 2021, in front of the Brothers Grimm monument.

After 2021 the SPD brought the CDU into the city government. In June 2023, when Isabelle Hemsley became a full-time Stadträtin — the first CDU member of the paid Magistrat in 20 years — Reddig, then 29, succeeded her as CDU faction chair. That November he named city finances, the municipal hospital and refugee housing as important issues. In March 2025, after his election to the Bundestag, he gave up the chair to Sören Winter, chosen unanimously, and said he would remain a councillor. The council elected on 15 March 2026 has 59 members, 18 SPD and 17 CDU. On 29 October 2026 the interests register still listed him as a member, while the self-reported biography still called him faction chair.

He also sat on the Ortsbeirat for Hanau-Innenstadt, a district board that can be given city-council business. In 2021 the CDU took 19.53 percent of candidate votes there. Reddig, seventh on its list with 1,540 votes, was not initially seated. In May 2022 he and Franz Ott replaced Karin and Heinz Münch. The biography dates that membership from 2022 to 2025.

Municipal company boards

The declaration also lists seats on undertakings the city or the district owns. From 3 July 2023 the city's 2024 participation report names him on the supervisory board of BeteiligungsHolding Hanau GmbH, the city-owned company that steers the municipal portfolio, including the hospital, the tram company, the utilities and Hanau Wirtschaftsförderung GmbH. That board as a whole was paid €18,500 in 2024. He is also listed on the board of the economic-development subsidiary, which supports local firms and encourages start-ups and relocations; its members together received €5,800.

He also sat, unpaid, on the Betriebskommission of Hanau Immobilien- und Baumanagement, the 2007 city enterprise that lets, maintains and builds property for city departments. The commission's 16 members approve transactions above 2 percent of the Stammkapital once they go beyond ordinary management. The 2024 report lists Reddig among the councillor members. The district report for that year names him on the supervisory board of Bildungspartner Main-Kinzig GmbH in Gelnhausen, the district-owned adult-education company, including the Volkshochschule, whose board members drew no attendance fees.

2025 federal election

Constituency 179

Constituency 179, Hanau, is one of the 22 Bundestag constituencies in Hesse. Under the statutory description used for the 2025 election it consists of municipalities of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis: Bruchköbel, Erlensee, Großkrotzenburg, Hammersbach, Hanau, Hasselroth, Langenselbold, Maintal, Neuberg, Nidderau, Niederdorfelden, Rodenbach, Ronneburg and Schöneck. The remaining municipalities of the district are in constituency 174, Main-Kinzig – Wetterau II – Schotten.

At the 2021 federal election the same list of municipalities formed constituency 180, also named Hanau. The number changed, without a change to that boundary, in the constituency schedule enacted by the 27th Act amending the Federal Elections Act of 7 March 2024, in force from 14 March 2024. One constituency was moved from Saxony-Anhalt to Bavaria so that the number of constituencies in each Land would track population; former constituencies 72 to 255 were renumbered, and Hesse’s 22 constituencies became numbers 166 to 187.

The outgoing member was Lennard Oehl of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who sat in the 20th Bundestag from October 2021 to March 2025 as the directly elected member for the Hanau constituency. In 2021 the SPD received 40,291 first votes (31.1 percent) and the CDU 36,019 (27.8 percent). Turnout was 74.6 percent: 131,412 voters out of 176,271 eligible. For 2025 the electorate was 175,243, 1,028 fewer than in 2021.

Result

The 2025 German federal election was held on 23 February 2025. In Hanau, 143,429 people voted, a turnout of 81.8 percent, 7.3 points higher than in 2021. There were 141,899 valid first votes and 142,260 valid second votes; 1,530 first votes and 1,169 second votes were invalid.

Pascal Reddig of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won the first vote with 45,346 votes, 32.0 percent, 4.1 points above the CDU share on the same territory in 2021. The Federal Returning Officer names Jan Lennard Oehl of the SPD as the runner-up, with 35,906 votes, 25.3 percent, down 5.8 points. The margin was 9,440 votes.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) took 27,150 first votes (19.1 percent, up 8.8 points), Alliance 90/The Greens 12,134 (8.6 percent, down 3.8), Die Linke 10,745 (7.6 percent, up 4.1) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) 5,177 (3.6 percent, down 6.5). The Free Voters received 3,340 (2.4 percent, down 0.2) and Volt Germany 2,101 (1.5 percent); Volt had no first-vote total in the constituency in 2021.

On the morning of polling day the Offenbach-Post listed eight constituency candidates whom the district electoral committee had admitted, while noting that the state committee still had to decide: Dominik Asch (AfD, Schöneck), Heico Becker (Free Voters, Maintal), Andrea Gittens (Volt, Hanau), Mahwish Iftikhar (Greens, Nidderau), Oehl (SPD, Nidderau), Matthias Okon (Die Linke, Hanau), Daniel Protzmann (FDP, Großkrotzenburg) and Reddig (CDU, Hanau). The final first-vote table contains votes only for those eight parties.

Second votes, which fix each party’s number of seats, produced a different order. The CDU led with 40,878 (28.7 percent, up 6.2 points), ahead of the AfD on 27,409 (19.3 percent, up 9.0) and the SPD on 26,049 (18.3 percent, down 9.3). The Greens received 15,482 (10.9 percent, down 3.2), Die Linke 12,169 (8.6 percent, up 4.7), the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) 7,122 (5.0 percent) and the FDP 7,024 (4.9 percent, down 8.3). Further second-vote totals included the Tierschutzpartei with 2,071 (1.5 percent), the Free Voters with 1,715 (1.2 percent) and Volt with 1,211 (0.9 percent). The CDU’s first-vote total exceeded its second-vote total by 4,468.

Taking the seat

From the 2025 election a candidate of a party wins a constituency seat only by taking the most first votes and by having that seat covered by the party’s second-vote entitlement in the Land, the rule known as Zweitstimmendeckung. In each Land the party’s constituency frontrunners are ranked by first-vote share, and the seats due on second votes are assigned in that order.

The Federal Returning Officer recorded Reddig as elected in constituency 179 with 32.0 percent, and lists him among the members returned in Hesse constituencies rather than from a state list. He had also been placed 20th on the CDU state list in Hesse. No CDU name appears among those elected from Hesse state lists; the list seats published for the Land went to the SPD (list places 2 to 9), the Greens, the AfD and Die Linke. The Bundestag’s biography describes him as the member for constituency 179, Hanau, in the 21st electoral term.

The 21st Bundestag held its constitutive sitting on Tuesday, 25 March 2025, at 11:00 in the plenary chamber of the Reichstag building in Berlin. Gregor Gysi of Die Linke opened the sitting as Alterspräsident, the longest-serving member willing to preside. The agenda included the rules of procedure and the election of the Bundestag president and the other members of the Presidium. Oehl’s membership of the Bundestag ended with the 20th electoral term in March 2025. He is not among the members returned in a Hesse constituency or from the Hesse SPD list.

Roles in the Bundestag

Chair of the Young Group

The Junge Gruppe, or Young Group, is not a committee of the Bundestag. It is an internal sociological group of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, open to every CDU and CSU member who was under 35 on election day. The parliamentary group said that it then had 18 members and that it stood for policy it described as sustainable and fair between generations.

At its constitutive meeting on 25 March 2025, the day the 21st Bundestag first sat, the group unanimously elected Pascal Reddig, the directly elected member for Hanau in Hesse, as chairman, with Dr. Konrad Körner of the CSU as first deputy and Catarina dos Santos-Wintz and Anna Aeikens as further deputies. In a statement issued the next day, Reddig said the group would carry younger people's views inside the parliamentary group and would watch that current decisions not fall on later generations; Körner said that, after compromises in the coalition talks, it would press the case for fairness between generations.

The Bundestag lists his Berlin office at Platz der Republik 1, 11011 Berlin, and his constituency office at Rudolf-Walther-Straße 4, 63584 Gründau.

Committees

In the 21st Bundestag he is a full member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs and of the Committee on Culture and Media, and a deputy member of the Health Committee. At the constitution of the Culture and Media Committee on 21 May 2025 he was one of six full members from the CDU/CSU.

An Obmann, or Obfrau, is not the committee chair. Each parliamentary group names one such member on a committee as its leadership's main contact there. Those members help set the group's line, agree agendas and plan the work, and report the detail of the negotiations back to the group.

In an interview it published on 14 July 2025, the Offenbach-Post referred to Reddig as the CDU/CSU Obmann on Culture and Media. On 6 October 2026 Vorsprung Online carried a press release saying the parliamentary group had that day elected him deputy chairman of its working group on labour and social affairs and, in that capacity, Obmann for the subject. The Bundestag biography records an Obmann role only for Labour and Social Affairs.

The Allgemeine Zeitung reported on 14 October 2026 that the group had the previous afternoon elected Johannes Volkmann its Obmann on Culture and Media. Reddig remained a full member of that committee. The biography, as published on the Bundestag site, still listed the membership and did not list him as its Obmann.

Other bodies and declarations of interest

The parliamentary group's pages also place him in its working group on culture and media, its working community on municipal policy, the group for expellees, resettlers and German minorities, and the Parlamentskreis Mittelstand.

On 6 November 2025 the Bundestag elected him an ordinary member of the advisory board on the graphic design of special postage stamps at the Federal Ministry of Finance, with Lukas Krieger as deputy, and a deputy on the separate board that chooses themes for special stamps issued without a surcharge. On 24 September 2026 the plenary agreed, with no objection recorded, to elect Melanie Bernstein an ordinary member of that programme board in place of Inge Gräßle, with Reddig as her personal deputy.

On 9 July 2026, by show of hands, the Bundestag unanimously accepted a joint CDU/CSU–SPD proposal and elected him a deputy member of the board of trustees of the Stiftung Orte der deutschen Demokratiegeschichte. Michael Hose, Daniela Ludwig and Helge Lindh were elected members, and Andrea Lindholz and Nancy Faeser deputies with him; an AfD proposal was rejected by the other groups.

From 15 September 2025 he has been an unpaid member of the executive board of Aktion Psychisch Kranke e.V. in Bonn. The association's list of that date names him as a Beisitzer, a board member without a separate office. Founded on 18 January 1971 and funded institutionally by the Federal Ministry of Health, the association describes itself as non-partisan and as a link between parliament, federal ministries and the psychiatric profession on behalf of people with mental illness.

Interests covered by the members' code of conduct must be filed within three months of taking a seat and within three months of any later change. The Bundestag publishes the entries that meet the threshold for disclosure. Reddig's published list gives his pre-mandate work as a lawyer at Media Kanzlei in Frankfurt; supervisory-board seats at BeteiligungsHolding Hanau GmbH, Bildungspartner Main-Kinzig GmbH and Hanau Wirtschaftsförderung GmbH; a seat on the Betriebskommission of Hanau Immobilien- und Baumanagement; membership of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis council until 31 December 2025; membership of the Hanau city assembly; and the unpaid APK board post.

Pension and social-security policy

Opposition to the 2025 pension package

The pension bill of the CDU/CSU–SPD coalition under Chancellor Friedrich Merz was to hold the statutory pension level at 48 per cent of average earnings through 1 July 2031, extend credits for raising children born before 1992 (Mütterrente III), and exempt some post-retirement earnings from tax. The coalition agreement limited that safeguard to 2031. Labour Minister Bärbel Bas's draft left the level about one percentage point higher than existing law after that.

The Young Group — 18 Union members of the Bundestag under 35 on election day, chaired by Pascal Reddig — resolved, n-tv reported on 14 October 2025, that the bill was unacceptable in that form. It put extra costs for 2032–2040 above 115 billion euros and called the draft the most expensive social law of the century, a lasting burden of billions on the young, as Reddig put it to Der Spiegel. Deputy chair Konrad Körner, its only CSU member, said spending that sum "through the back door" conflicted with the commission set up to repair the social systems.

SPD deputy parliamentary leader Dagmar Schmidt called the criticism Generationentäuschung. Restoring the sustainability factor in full, she said, would slow rises after 2032 and leave today's contributors with smaller pensions, whereas the safeguard was not to be financed on their backs. The wider Mütterrente, about five billion euros a year on n-tv's figure, was later projected to cost 62.7 billion euros through 2039, and the safeguard 122 billion, with about 20 euros a month more per pre-1992 child.

On 5 December 2025 the Bundestag passed those two measures by 318 votes to 224, with 53 abstentions, two above the absolute majority of 316 Merz had required. Seven of 208 Union members voted no, two abstained and one did not vote. Die Welt, using the roll-call, named the no votes as Reddig, Young Union chair Johannes Winkel, Yannick Bury, Marvin Schulz, Johannes Volkmann, Johannes Wiegelmann and Nicolas Zippelius; all but Zippelius were in the Young Group. Niklas Kappe and Körner abstained, and Roderich Kiesewetter did not vote. Welt called Reddig and Winkel "pension rebels"; the group set no joint line once a united no threatened the coalition. Reddig told the chamber the bill ran against his fundamental convictions, what he had entered politics for, and fairness between generations. The SPD voted yes, the AfD and Greens no, and the Left largely abstained. Merz called this the beginning, not the end, of pension policy and promised a broader 2026 reform from a commission.

The pension commission of 2026

On 23 June 2026 the Alterssicherungskommission, after about five months, handed over 33 recommendations. It comprised two chairs, three young members from the CDU, CSU and SPD, and eight experts. Reddig sat for the CDU; the Bundestag biography, which the parliament says members supply themselves, lists him as deputy chair from January to June 2026. SPD member Annika Klose said the parts were interdependent and should pass together.

On published assumptions the statutory age would rise after 2031 by about half a year a decade, from 67 to 67.5 by 2041, splitting extra longevity two-to-one between work and retirement. The deduction-free pension after 45 contribution years — the Rente mit 63, by 2026 starting at 64.5 — would end, except for long contributors who near retirement could no longer do their job; the earliest age for other long-insured people would move from 63 to 64. A mandatory funded tier on a Swedish model would add two percentage points from 2028, invested in a public fund or licensed private funds. New self-employed people without other compulsory cover, and members of the Bundestag and state parliaments, would join the statutory scheme, and mini-jobs would lose their special status except for school pupils.

Juso chair Philipp Türmer said linking the pension age to life expectancy was unfair to people who start hard work young, and Ver.di's Frank Werneke said 67 was already unreachable in many jobs; Bas called the outcome a good overall package, and Merz said inaction was not an option.

Subsequent debate

The dispute then centred on ending the deduction-free pension after 45 years. In late July Saxon minister-president Michael Kretschmer said Saxony would not approve the pension and care reforms in the Bundesrat without changes. With CDU minister-presidents Sven Schulze and Mario Voigt, he argued that in eastern Germany the statutory pension is usually the only pillar and that relatively many people complete 45 contribution years. SPD minister-presidents Manuela Schwesig and Dietmar Woidke joined the criticism; Schwesig said years of contributions were fairer than average life expectancy. The five eastern states have 19 Bundesrat votes, short of the 35 required out of 69, and Union deputy Sepp Müller said the abolition should nevertheless stand.

In Das Parlament, released by the Bundestag on 23 July 2026, Reddig said the autumn row had brought the commission forward from the mid-term date in the coalition agreement, and that the aim had been better policy, not a veto. The interviewer spoke of an "uprising of the young pension rebels". He preferred a funded "Sweden pension" to a compulsory occupational pension and said already decided items, including the extended Mütterrente, should not be reopened, because dropping one piece could unbalance the rest.

On 24 July the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported a BDA paper in which president Rainer Dulger called the funded pension's extra cost far too high and sought a steeper rise in the retirement age, while defending blocked partial retirement; unions, it said, were calling marches against that funded tier. By 22 October 2026 no implementing law had passed, and the argument over the Rente mit 63 remained open. On 28 October the German Trade Union Confederation proposed keeping the age at 67 from the 1964 cohort, retaining the deduction-free pension after 45 years, and raising the level from 48 per cent toward 53, financed in part by an occupational pension for all employees. Chair Yasmin Fahimi said fairness between generations was more than a low contribution rate.

Culture, media and other positions

Culture and media

Reddig, whose practice before parliament was press and media law, is an ordinary member of the Bundestag Committee on Culture and Media. The 18-member committee oversees federal cultural funding, Deutsche Welle and national film support. Broadcasting law remains chiefly with the Länder.

In July 2025 he told Offenbach-Post that less use of traditional media among pupils argued for strong public broadcasting, local journalism and youth protection on digital media. On 5 November 2025, on motions from Alliance 90/The Greens and Die Linke, he said large platforms should bear more responsibility and that he preferred a purpose-bound levy for culture and media to an unearmarked tax, if it was legally secure and compatible with European Union law. He called the Green motion window-dressing, and, on an Alternative for Germany motion the same day, defended the German Publishers' Prize for small publishers if awards stayed neutral.

In March 2026 he wrote that the Reformstaatsvertrag was cutting niche channels and increasing cooperation among ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio. He backed public broadcasting as a "Bollwerk des Vertrauens" if structures became leaner and stayed focused on information, education and culture. In June he defended leaving the contribution unchanged in 2025–26 rather than raising it to the €18.94 recommended by the KEF. On 20 March 2026, debating artistic freedom and Culture Commissioner Wolfram Weimer, he said Article 5 of the Basic Law protects provocative art from censorship but creates no right to subsidies. Extremists of any stripe, he argued, should not receive tax money; he accused critics of a double standard on the Haber check, and said documenta, the Berlinale and the Eurovision Song Contest had faced anti-Israel and antisemitic pressure.

For Hanau he sought payment of €500,000 approved in the previous term for a new Brothers Grimm Festival stage, a delay he had raised with the Chancellery and the Budget Committee. MKK-Echo, citing his office, reported in November 2025 that the grant notice had arrived, together with €80,000 in project funding for 2026. The 2023 application had been started by former SPD member Lennard Oehl.

Health, work and local economy

He is a deputy member of the Committee on Health and, from 15 September 2025, an unpaid board member of Aktion Psychisch Kranke. The association was founded on 18 January 1971 by Bundestag members of all groups and psychiatric specialists to press for reform of psychiatric care, and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Health.

At Klinikum Hanau, in a visit reported on 17 March 2026, he cited an expected statutory health-insurance deficit of about €12 billion for 2027 and said stable contributions remained the goal. He judged the municipal hospital better placed than average and said the federation and the Länder had to set reliable conditions. On 28 July 2026 he tied his vote for the Act to Stabilise Contribution Rates to costs rising by almost 8 per cent a year and a deficit of about €19 billion without reform. He defended ending routine skin-cancer screening every two years from age 35, for lack of reliable evidence that it reduces mortality, while keeping checks for people at higher risk.

As Obmann for the CDU/CSU on the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs — the post he said he had wanted — he put Bürgergeld spending above €50 billion and called change urgent. His declaration of interests also records a seat on the supervisory board of Hanau Wirtschaftsförderung GmbH.

Reception

Media coverage

From autumn 2025, national outlets treated Pascal Reddig, chair of the Junge Gruppe in the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, as the public face of dissent inside the Union over the coalition’s pension package. After the 5 December vote, Die Welt headlined “Die ‚Renten-Rebellen’” and named him and Johannes Winkel, federal chair of the Junge Union, among seven Union members who voted no. It reported his line that the bill ran “gegen meine fundamentalen Überzeugungen” and against intergenerational fairness, and that Chancellor Friedrich Merz listened while the Union group applauded. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung called him the “Chefrebell” and cast the row as a test of Merz’s authority inside a fragile coalition.

Stern asked in a headline of 18 November 2025, “Pascal Reddig, wollen Sie im Rentenstreit den Kanzler stürzen?” The Münchner Merkur, drawing on that interview, reported that he rejected the “Drohkulisse” of a collapsing coalition and said there would be no confidence vote because talks were still under way. It also noted louder applause for him than for Merz at the Junge Union’s Deutschlandtag in Rust. ZDF carried his line that the group would “in dieser Frage stehen.” The Frankfurter Neue Presse on 20 November headlined “Es ist kein Jung gegen Alt,” quoting him that most letters came from older people around Hanau.

On 26 November Der Spiegel billed a talk with Juso chair Philipp Türmer “Zwei Rebellen, ein Konflikt.” In February 2026 Die Zeit interviewed him under “Wir fahren nicht zum Parteitag, um nur dem Kanzler zu applaudieren.” After he sat on the pension commission, the taz on 28 June called him a former “Rentenrebell” turned “wandelnder Rentenkompromiss,” and hessenschau, of Hessischer Rundfunk, headlined “Hanauer Rentenrebell will Rentenretter werden.” On 16 October the Handelsblatt still used “Rentenrebell” for an interview on the slow pace of reform.

Criticism and responses

n-tv reported on 14 October 2025 that Dagmar Schmidt, deputy chair of the SPD Bundestag group, called the young Union stance “Generationentäuschung”: fully reactivating the sustainability factor, she said, would mean paying contributions now and drawing a smaller pension later. In early December Kristof Becker, youth secretary of the German Trade Union Confederation, urged a yes. A stable statutory level for all employees was “sehr wohl generationengerecht,” he told dpa, as reported by Der Spiegel; the conflict was between employers and employees, not young and old.

Klaus Holetschek, CSU floor leader in the Bavarian Landtag, told the Tagesspiegel that failure would be “ein echtes Problem für das ganze Land.” He said he could campaign only for a yes, while crediting members under 35 with having shown how urgent reform was. A Spiegel editorial by Roland Nelles on 2 December, “Rentenrebellen, es reicht!,” argued that dispute belongs to democracy but so does compromise, and that the young in the Union should stop.

Reddig refused the label. He told the NZZ the “Rebell” had not been needed; he saw himself as a “Rentenfachpolitiker” watching the coalition agreement. In the Zeit interview he said he hoped not to be stuck with “Rentenrebell”: “Niemand von uns sieht sich als Rebell.” He told the taz the group “haben uns auch im letzten Jahr nicht als Rentenrebellen gesehen,” and hessenschau that “wir wollen Rentenretter sein.”

By August 2026 the argument had partly reversed. tagesschau reported that Steffen Kampeter of the employers’ confederation was “fassungslos” that central commission proposals, above all ending the abschlagfreie early pension, were being questioned before implementation, including by eastern CDU and SPD minister-presidents and by the DGB. Reddig, deputy chair of the commission, warned that lifting that element out could make “das ganze Haus der Rentenreform zusammenstürzen.” The October Handelsblatt interview quoted him that expectations of Merz had been high and “Nicht alle wurden erfüllt,” under a headline using his line that he would gladly be voted out.