For Alexia Bertrand, pension reform does not mean “reach the legal retirement age“, more “try to bring the actual retirement age as close as possible to the legal retirement age“.
The assimilated periods are clearly in the viewfinder of the Secretary of State. “This means that when you are unemployed, it is assimilated to periods of work for your pension“, recalls Alexia Bertrand. “This means that you can have situations where people who have hardly ever worked will retire and will sometimes even find themselves in situations almost equivalent to people who have worked for 30 years.“, she explains. Therefore, she recommends increasing “the number of effective working days to access the pension” to “ensure that there are more pension rights for those who work“.
For those who have not worked enough, for example because they have experienced unemployment, there would be the minimum pension. “We have also increased the amount of this minimum pension under this government. We are proud of it”emphasizes Alexia Bertrand.
The Secretary of State also refers to the opinion of the European Commission which recommends paying attention to the increase in the cost of Belgian pensions if we want the system to remain sustainable.
In this context, the pension reform proposed by the Minister of Pensions, Karine Lalieux (PS) is considered by Alexia Bertrand as “a basis of work“The reform project is qualified”insufficientt” by the Secretary of State for the Budget. “It’s not going to improve things that much by about 0.3% of GDP. However, what the Commission tells us (European, editor’s note)is that we must be close to 1.1% of GDP“, argumente Alexia Bertrand. “We’re gonna have to do more“, adds the Secretary of State. To do more is to reform pensions and the labor market.