2023-07-10 05:16:00
The government agreed at dawn on Monday on a pension reform, announced the Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo, and the Minister of Pensions, Karine Lalieux. A progressive bonus system will be introduced to support the retention of older workers.
The agreement reached following a night of negotiations supplements that concluded a year ago in this area and aims in particular to make the system more financially sustainable in view of the cost of the aging of the population. The various measures will reduce this by 0.5% by 2070.
Here is the content of the new pension reform proposal
In May, the European Commission had called on Belgium to exercise budgetary prudence to deal with aging and had pointed out “a lack of significant compensatory budgetary measures”.
As designed last summer, the pension bonus led to increased expenditure by 2030 according to calculations by the Planning Office. The bonus will not be paid gross, but net. For the person who wishes to extend his career, there is the possibility of opting for a single payment. This single payment will increase gradually to reach up to 22,645 euros for those who choose to work three additional years following the theoretical date of early retirement.
“The progressive bonus is a strong measure, completely new, which will ensure support for workers who decide to stay active longer,” said Ms. Lalieux.
A special effort will be made for people who have a long career, allowing them to exceed the total amount of 22,645 euros.
The agreement also aims to make the highest pensions contribute via a doubling of the Wijninckx contribution, that is to say the special contribution affecting the premiums for supplementary pensions in the second pillar. It will increase from 3% to 6% from January 1, 2028, in accordance with a request from the social partners.
“Solidarity between high pensions and low pensions is strengthened. It was essential,” added the minister.
The first agreement concluded in July 2022 at the cost of long negotiations introduced a condition of effective work to benefit from a minimum pension, the amount of which has been revalued. New periods assimilated to work will be added in order, among other things, to better protect women who generally have a shorter and more choppy career than men. This concerns birth leave, adoption leave, preventive leave from work, temporary unemployment and paternity leave.
The equalization of civil servants’ pensions, a sort of mechanism for adapting civil servants’ pensions to well-being in addition to indexation, is maintained but capped at 0.3% of civil servants’ pensions. The PS minister says she held firm once morest liberal demands that wanted to abolish this system.
As part of the budget control in March, the revaluation of the minimum pension had been reduced by a few euros per month. The measure, which represents an annual saving of 126 million euros, is confirmed.
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