2024-10-03 11:08:17
At its last meeting before the election, the National Council decided to cap the statutory pension increase of 4.6% planned for the coming year at 279 Ꞓ per month. This only affects recipients of particularly high pensions or special pensions that are above the ASVG maximum contribution base of 6,060 Ꞓ. Today he has Federal Council given the green light for this cap. As in the National Council, the ÖVP, SPÖ and Greens voted for the legislative package, which also received the necessary two-thirds majority in the state chamber.
Criticism – from different directions – came from the FPÖ and NEOS. While the Freedom Party advocated using the pensioner price index as the basis for the pension adjustment in 2025 and thus increasing all pensions – up to the maximum contribution basis – by 5.5%, the NEOS warned of further increases in pension expenditure. However, a motion for a resolution submitted by the FPÖ to support its demand did not find a majority, nor did a motion for a resolution by the SPÖ, which aimed, among other things, at reintroducing the so-called “Hackler regulation” – i.e. early retirement without deductions after 45 years of work.
With the Legislative package In addition, the cost-of-living protection clause for new pensioners will be extended by one year – in the form of an extraordinary total credit of 4.5% to the pension account. The aliquoting of the first pension increase will also remain suspended for another year. This means that regardless of the month in which you start your pension in 2025, the full pension increase will be due in 2026.
ÖVP and Greens welcome legislative package
Federal Councilors Ernest Schwindsackl (ÖVP/St), Maria Huber (Greens/St) and Klara Neurauter (ÖVP/T), among others, were pleased with the package. The increase of 4.6% would fully take into account the price increases of the last 12 months, claimed Schwindsackl. According to him, pensions have actually increased by more than 20% in the last three years. Overall, Schwindsackl also considers the Austrian pension system to be “one of the best in the world,” and in many countries retirees could “only dream” of a 13th and 14th pension payment. His parliamentary group colleague Neurauter emphasized, among other things, that the abolition of cold progression would also benefit pensioners.
In order to continue to secure the pension system, Schwindsackl not only believes that a high level of employment is important, but that the actual retirement age must also be brought closer to the actual retirement age.
Green Federal Councilor Huber emphasized that both the extension of the protective clause and the renewed suspension of pension quotas would help people retire later. Without a protective clause, it would happen that someone would receive a higher pension if they retired this year instead of next year, she outlined.
SPÖ strictly against increasing the statutory retirement age
The SPÖ also gave its approval to the package. A higher pension adjustment would certainly have been desirable, said the Carinthian SPÖ Federal Councilor Manfred Mertel, but if “the state coffers are so dilapidated” that there is no more than 4.6%, the senior citizens would accept that, he said. However, according to him, the last few years have not been easy for pensioners given the “wave of inflation”; both food prices and housing costs have “skyrocketed”.
The SPÖ was strictly against raising the statutory retirement age and underlined this demand with a motion for a resolution submitted by the Styrian Federal Councilor Horst Schachner. In your opinion, other measures are needed such as payment for all overtime worked, personnel offensives in the areas of health, education and care and better conditions for healthy work in order to secure the Austrian pension system. Mertel also advocated a permanent abolition of pension aliquots and regretted that the cost-of-living protection clause generally does not apply to corridor pensions.
FPÖ demands pension increase of 5.5%
Markus Steinmaurer (FPÖ/Upper Austria) also criticized the fact that corridor pensions were only partially taken into account in the protective clause. He also considers the planned pension increase of 4.6% to be “unsustainable”. In order to compensate for the inflation for pensioners, it is necessary to increase pensions by 5.5% in the coming year up to the maximum contribution base of 6,060 Ꞓ. The inflation of the last few years has driven pensioners “into the poverty trap and turned them into supplicants,” complained Steinmaurer. He also pushed for the reintroduction of an official pensioner price index.
NEOS for savings on pension expenses
Manuela-Anna Sumah-Vospernik (NEOS/W) argued in the opposite direction. She sees Austria’s future at risk due to the constantly increasing pension expenditure. The way the pension system is set up now, it is not safe in the long term, she warned. More and more money would flow into pensions and would then be missing for investments in the future of the young generation – for example in education, climate protection and health. “Of course” pensions should be adjusted to inflation, explained Sumah-Vospernik, but additional “goodies” such as extending the protective clause and suspending pension quotas again are not appropriate. After all, the inflation had long since been offset. She also called for the reversal of other measures adopted in recent years for the benefit of retirees, such as the early starter bonus or the compensatory allowance bonus for at least 30 or 40 years of work.
Rauch: Don’t shake the Austrian pension system
Social Minister Johannes Rauch, however, considers NEOS’s concerns to be unfounded and warned against shaking up the Austrian pension system. He believes that the real goal of NEOS is to transform the Austrian pension system from a contributory to a funded system. However, this would leave the company at the mercy of the volatility of the stock markets and jeopardize the current good security in old age, he warned. In Rauch’s opinion, the NEOS do not take into account in their calculations that a good portion of pension expenditure flows back into the budget through levies and indirect taxes; moreover, the pension expenditure curve will go down again in the long term.
In the direction of the other critics, Rauch stated that the government had reacted to the extraordinary inflation situation. Minimum pensioners would now receive 200 Ꞓ more than they did two years ago. The inflation was compensated for with this and other measures such as the protective clause. (Continuation of the Federal Council) gs
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