German finance minister to visit, discuss Holocaust survivors' pensions

Pensioner Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan is expected to meet the German finance minister in Israel next week to discuss additional stipends for Holocaust survivors.

Eitan wants Germany to accept responsibility for some 200,000 Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s and who were not accounted for in the reparations agreement signed with Germany in 1952.

He also seeks additional stipends because the reparations agreement with Germany from 1952 did not take into consideration the survivors' increased longevity.

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck is expected in Israel next week. Last week his spokesman said he had no plans to meet Eitan or discuss the reparations issue on his visit to Israel.

However, Eitan's demands last week raised a political and media furor in Germany, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that if Israel makes a request, Germany will discuss reopening the reparations agreement. She said she realized the circumstances had changed since the first agreement was signed.

Haaretz has learned that despite his spokesman's denial, Steinbrueck will meet with Eitan and a group of survivors' representatives here.

The meeting with Steinbrueck is not expected to yield an immediate agreement on reparations but could lead to the forming of a joint Israeli-German committee.