Proposition 53K2264

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 28 décembre 2011 portant des dispositions diverses, en ce qui concerne la pension des travailleurs salariés et portant de nouvelles mesures transitoires en matière de pension de retraite anticipée des travailleurs salariés.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

June 15, 2012

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

communications profession pension scheme early retirement white-collar worker

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld MR VB

Abstained from voting

∉ N-VA LDD

Party dissidents ¶

• Peter Luykx (CD&V) abstained from voting.

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Discussion ¶

July 13, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I am referring to my written report.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, Mr. Minister, today we are discussing the second section of the transitional measures for the new pension scheme. I would like to emphasize that we fully support the reforms that were decided in December. We believe it is important to effectively increase the retirement age gradually.

Despite the uncertainties that arose in December, and the justified dissatisfaction thereof among people who were close to their retirement, I still hear positive reactions from people who understand that reforms are absolutely necessary to ensure the survival of our social system. I think that gradual increase is a step forward.

Mr. Minister, however, in December we also pointed out the need for fair transitional measures, the so-called “acquired expectations”, ⁇ for those who had already carefully planned the end of their career, and for those who were 58 or 59 years old and were very close to their retirement but that retirement suddenly saw postponed. In that sense, however, we are satisfied with the existing transitional measures, which provide for a maximum of 2 years postponement of retirement, in which the rights to early retirement are restricted and in which workers who have already used that scheme can continue to the old conditions during their notice period.

I have understood that those born in December are also entitled to the regime of the year in which they were born, and do not fall under the regime of the following month or year, the moment when they normally start their retirement.

The confusion that arose after the adoption of the law in December continues to persist somewhat, despite the serious efforts of the people of the pension services, for whom I hear great praise. They try to answer all questions and they try to ensure clear communication. I think, Mr. Minister, this remains an important point of attention.

As I said before in the committee, I am still a little hungry about why the cost of the system for journalists is not at first and suddenly apparently in order. I have not received sufficient explanations for this. This also applies to my question about the final cost or revenue of the reform. This too remains a little unknown to me.

Mr. Minister, I would like to submit a few points of attention and a question for the continuation. Today we approve the measures for workers, but also for the civil servants system there are still implementing provisions and adjustments to be made. I read on the website of the officials that there is a brochure. We are working on a preliminary design. Unless I am mistaken, we have not seen it so far.

Are we not creating confusion again, because there would still be a number of measures and implementing provisions for officials to be adopted by 31 July? Maybe I am wrong, Mr. Minister, but then you will definitely correct me. How about this? When will we get clarity on this? Also among the officials there are systems that, I thought, should be in order by 31 July.

In addition, some pension schemes or applications have been suspended until there is a clear arrangement. Those people remain in the unknown. I want to emphasize this. Where is that regulation? How will it be arranged? I do not expect that we will get another text here next week at a draft in the committee, which we will have to discuss in two days in the plenary session. I hope that this will not be repeated.

I come to another point of attention. In the context of encouraging and rewarding works, an evaluation of the pension bonus was provided. Mr. Minister, I think I remember that you said that you would have a text or a proposal prepared before the recess, which could be discussed during the recess. After the recession, we could then start the discussions. In this way, at the end of this year, there will be clarity and certainty about the future system of the pension bonus.

Mr. Minister, I would like to ask you a few questions on this subject. Will people be able to maintain the security they build through a bonus? We have also prepared a proposal on this subject. What cricket lines will be used for the bonus, if it is retained?

We have the evaluation of the Plan Bureau and there is the report of the National Bank. We find some hesitation in it, but we also find some elements in it to adjust the system of bonuses as it currently exists.

We must continue to signal that longer work is worthwhile and must be rewarded.

Mr. Minister, you have also discovered the wage gap that continues in the pension gap. You will ensure that there is enough information. We have long advocated for a career planning system. I am pleased that you will make a little more effort so that we can get more data faster, as now through www.mypension.be and www.kenuwpensioen.be.

Mr. Minister, I have one last, very important point of attention. You know that the number of mixed careers is increasing. You have announced two measures in this regard.

First, the unit of career. We know that there are scary situations. That unit of career exists in theory. These are people who have worked for more than 45 years.

I give the example of a hairdresser who has worked for 48 years as a self-employed and as an employee. In theory, the years in which he earned the most are taken as the basis for the calculation of his pension, but one can not do so at the moment, so one takes the years as an employee and one completes that with the years as an independent employee. He earned more as a self-employed than as an employee. These are tens of euros, which can make a difference for a small pension.

An important aspect within the framework of the unit of career is that at least in a correct way is considered what is the highest salary on the basis of which a career can be calculated.

A second point of attention that I find equally important before one begins to work on earning extra after retirement is the mixed minimum pension. The minimum for a mixed career is lower than the minimum for the self-employed and the minimum for the employees. It is not possible that one, because one has that mixed career, comes to a lower minimum than even the minimum of the two systems separately.

Mr. Minister, these are some of the points of attention that I hope you will work out, and that you will concretely translate them into reality. Quitting work early may be an option for some, but for a Minister of Pension, not working is definitely not an option.

Mr. Minister, everyone remembers the way you pursued the pension reform by Parliament here in December last year. You have made amendments through amendments to a program law to amend such fundamental legislation. Let’s be honest, that way of acting is a democracy unworthy and ⁇ not susceptible to repetition. At that time already, our group strongly opposed this way of acting. We are now half a year away and our criticism is justified. Today there is already a repair law on the table, which should address the shortcomings of the previous law.

Mr. Minister, we support certain reforms and we also support the goal of keeping workers working longer. We also agree that transitional measures need to be taken. However, you went too fast and you went out of the curve. This is the repair law now. This repair law is therefore even more extensive than the original law. It serves in the first place to remove all the shortcomings in the previous law, which was adopted too hastily. Mr. Minister, in such an important matter as pensions, it is better to choose well-considered and thoroughly elaborated adjustments. This is better than implementing an imperfect reform quickly. The reform of late 2011 was not ripe and needs to be corrected now.

Some measures were even quickly implemented on the basis of incorrect figures. This was the case, for example, for the supplementary pension for professional journalists. Half a year ago you asserted with certainty that this pension system is losing. After the protest of the professional group, which apparently had recent and correct figures, it turns out that is not the case now. The system of professional journalists is not losing. It is unheard of that you create uncertainty in this way.

It is important that a law provides legal certainty. The citizen must know his rights and duties and know where he or she is. Legal certainty requires laws that do not change every five minutes, especially because everyone is thought to know the law. If one day you proclaim that a pension system should be abolished because it is losing, and the next day you proclaim that it was just to laugh, that the system was not losing, and that you will abolish the provisions by which you first wanted to abolish the system, then you create legal chaos.

You put the legal certainty on the slope in an important matter such as pensions. You are creating chaos. A lack of legal certainty inevitably causes dissatisfaction and even fear. Lack of legal certainty also causes reputation damage.

The abrupt changes in the pension legislation have, on the one hand, an effect on your credibility and, on the other hand, on the government’s impact. However, they also have an impact on the level of support for any further reforms among the population.

Mr. Minister, your pension reform is hasty and poorly prepared. Your pension reform is inevitably only the beginning. The budgetary impact is very limited. Your pension reform is also insufficiently structured with measures to provide effective prospects for employees with a longer career.

The N-VA is of the opinion that a pension reform is more than necessary. We also believe that there should be transitional measures. Given the progress of things and ⁇ your approach, our group will abstain.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, the bill on compensation that is being examined today largely confirms the substantive criticism that the Ecolo-Groen group issued in December, when the adoption of a pension reform was made to the hussard. This pension reform is unfair, uncoordinated, based on false and incomplete data; in short, it contributes to weakening the effectiveness of our pension system and the solidarity between our fellow citizens.

Some of our criticisms at the time are now being answered in the framework of this bill. Better late than never, of course, but they do not correct the overall negative trend.

Mr. Minister, all this could have been avoided through a prior, correct consultation of the social interlocutors and your administration. And with a democratic debate, simply respectful.

This is not your sole responsibility, it is that of the six parties of today’s majority, but I will remind you nevertheless that it was in almost ten minutes that this reform, the heaviest that our pension system has known in very many years, would have had to vote.

The current majority has decided otherwise – and I hear Mrs. Becq’s criticism as well as I have heard Ms. Fonck’s or other Socialist colleagues in the Social Affairs Committee.

In terms of pensions, the said majority and you yourself have caused very heavy damage. As I have already said – and I take the opportunity to repeat it, Mr. Minister of Pensions – I fear that if we continue to let you do, the confidence in our statutory pension system and above all its effectiveness will be undermined with much higher social and budgetary costs than the savings you claim to make.

The stakes are huge. The recent report of the Pension Ombudsman highlights this: we must be able to take into account the joyful increase in life expectancy, increasingly mixed careers, the situation of workers and, above all, of women with incomplete careers. In relation to these aspects, your working method and the measures you have taken to challenge equal periods and the possibility of combining work and family life are catastrophic.

You acted in a hurry. You wanted to make savings, but ultimately it has a cost, as we could see during the budget adjustment. When entitled survivors had concerns about their future ability to access, within the deadlines they had imagined, or within relatively identical deadlines to those they had imagined, they decided to anticipate their retirement. This is how, during the budget adjustment, you asked us for additional resources. If the corrections made to maintain the right for persons who, while having access to early retirement, wish to continue working are positive, they are incomplete. I took the example of people who would soon be able to have access to an early pension. You have decided to limit the additional period during which they should work, but taking into account a double criterion: age and career.

Adding these two criteria is unfair to those who started their careers very early. Imagine two workers who started on the same day in the same company and who have held the same functions for more than 30 years. And well, the youngest would not have access to this early retirement option! In order to correct this new inaccuracy, this new unfair dimension of your reparative bill, we resubmit the amendment that aims to take into account only the career criterion and not the age criterion.

In addition, you defended your pension reform project based on incorrect figures, on a lack of knowledge of the file. This is typical compared to an emblematic case: that of the supplementary pension of journalists. This is a complementary pension scheme, which is part of our pension system and is managed directly by the ONP.

It relies on additional contributions paid by both employers and workers. It has been working well for many years to the greatest satisfaction of the interested parties. You decided in December to remove it. Your only argument was that this measure was included in the majority agreement. This is the only answer you gave us, when we asked you to provide us with clear figures. Despite all the information gathered very quickly, showing that the system was not in deficit and that it was inappropriate to remove it without any other form of trial, you wanted to continue on your launch and today, you do step back, because the system remains beneficial.

On the other hand, you say that the day the system will no longer be beneficial, one can consider challenging it by a simple royal decree, either through a decrease in intervention for the benefit of the interested parties or through an increase in contributions. At this point, you do not take into account the cumulative bonuses of this system but ⁇ you can give me more answers today than you did in the Social Affairs Committee. As the system is managed within our first pillar of pensions, the profits of the past have been re-injected into the overall pension system, which is quite delightful. This is how it works in a distribution system. But you say today that the first day when the system becomes deficitary, we will question everything without taking into account these additional contributions paid in the past. What is the mattress that could be formed? Is it not necessary to have more flexibility for this surplus of contributions that has been paid over the years by workers and employers in the press sector? Per ⁇ you have been able to gather more information over the past fifteen days?

In total, it is a reparative law that corrects part of the damage you have caused. This does not fundamentally change the course of things or the choices your government has taken in terms of retirement. But as soon as the situation of certain pensioners or future pensioners is improved, we will vote for it in the hope that the amendment that I defended in committee, and which I re-depose here, can be the subject of a majority approval.

Mr. Minister of Pensions, there is still work to be done to restore confidence and maintain the effectiveness of our pension system. I have not returned to the episode of the non-nomination of a general manager of the Office of Pensions. This is why the Ecolo-Groen group submitted many pension bills the day after the December debate, which were eventually incorporated into your project. We wanted to maintain workers’ acquired rights in terms of early access to pension.

Thus, some will work a few more years instead of speeding up their rights.

Similarly, 4 bills aimed at improving the training throughout the career of workers, taking into account the older workers, will be considered right now. In fact, in addition to training rates that are lower than the goals we have collectively forced ourselves to ⁇ , we see that older workers have even less access than others to these training. This is a way to stay on the page, to be good at work.

Another bill aims to facilitate and strengthen the adaptation of workplaces to the evolving physical capacity and ...

He can listen to you, Mr. Gilkinet, he has two ears. He talks to one and hears to the other.

It is formidable. I am pleased that Secretary of State Crombez is also interested in these data.

Therefore, Mr. Minister of Pensions, another proposal of law aims to allow for a better adaptation of workplaces to the physical and psychological capabilities of workers. We are not the same at 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 years old.

Finally, a bill that is very dear to us aims to develop forms of tutoring that allow to value the experience gained by older workers and to benefit younger workers. Furthermore, it also allows older people to lighten their workload and stay in office longer while liberating employment for young people.

This formula is a real win-win exchange (win-win) and goes entirely against the choice you have made, namely to keep full-time workers in office, even if they no longer have the capacity, while an adaptation of their workplace, their function, continuous training, a valuation of their experience would be the best way to allow them to work longer in good conditions.

This is a modern and respectful way of looking at the future of the labour market and the pension market. This is not the one you have chosen with the government, Mr. Minister of Pensions. We continue to regret it.

I will conclude by pointing out – like Mrs Becq, who is well acquainted with the pension system, but to whom I repeat that she is part of that majority – that many workers are concerned about the age at which they will be able to retire and want the amounts paid to them to be decent. This is especially true of the smaller pensions. This is what is expected of a pension minister: bringing clarity rather than uncertainty – which is, and I regret, your specialty.

Mr. Minister, colleagues, it was written in the stars that the Minister would come with a repair law for the day. Already at the beginning of the discussion of the so-called pension law, nota bene via a law containing various provisions, we have warned about this. We have often passed repair laws here that change some technical detail in a law, but here it is about fundamental changes that affect people directly.

This is the result of the art and flight work, the cutting and gluing work in the discussion of the original pension law and discussions based on incorrect data. I refer, for example, to the discussion on the supplementary pension for journalists. You did this consciously, of course. You have abused this file to initially profile yourself after years of standstill under your predecessor. Everyone had to know very quickly who the Minister of Pensions was and you have succeeded, but for that hunting behavior we have to pay a high price. I refer to the strikes with high costs for companies, to the dissatisfaction in many sectors and especially to the legal uncertainty, chaos and confusion among citizens.

In the meantime, it is seven months after the date. Many still have questions about their retirement. Their retirement is one of their main concerns and it remains unfair that they are left in the unknown for so long.

Now a number of inequalities and uncertainties in the pension reform are being removed. We can find ourselves in these adjustments, such as clicking on pension rights.

However, this months-long uncertainty would not have lasted if you had respected the usual methods of social consultation. However, you would show who had it to say. You have tried to show that you could work quickly and efficiently and that you would arrange everything on ‘one-two-three’. The result was and is chaos and uncertainty. I hope you realize that this way of working is not susceptible to repetition, ⁇ not in such delicate files that deal with the well-being of our pensioners. People, especially in times of economic and financial crisis, need clarity and stability. They have no message to the war that was waged between you and the trade unions. This is, of course, consciously translated.

Now it is up to the people to inform as soon as possible about their condition. After all, setting up call centers makes no sense if there are no clear answers to everyone. This only makes the confusion greater. I therefore hope that in the coming weeks a clear information campaign will be set up to clarify the scope of what will be voted here today.

We also ask for quick clarification on the situation of the officials, in whom there is legal uncertainty.

We will support the current adjustments, which eliminate some of the perverse effects of your pension reform, but this does not affect the fact that the Flemish Interest remains absolutely in favour of the pure forty-year career, with the emphasis on the career and not on the age, as well as of the urgent harmonisation of the various pension systems.

We therefore urge to work on this.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, dear colleagues, the text that we will vote today and which we support, of course, Mr. Minister, constitutes a beautiful demonstration of the fact that a consultation with the social partners does not prevent, firstly, the decision and, secondly, the positive progress.

Indeed, the text presented today, of which I approve the measures it contains, allows to make corrections to the bill, corrections brought through social consultation. Whether it is on early retirement, on the correction or phase-up in respect of people very close to their retirement or even on the pensions of journalists, these three provisions are clearly positive.

Remember that we had long committee debates and a major plenary discussion on the unfair effect of the project on people close to their early retirement age (60 or 61 years): over the months, they saw their retirement postponed by 5 years compared to the pre-regime; it was huge and even unfair, not to say very unfair.

This phasing now allows a correction through the introduction of a maximum two-year postponement period. This is what satisfies us.

Mr. Minister, in the committee you have committed to promptly implement clear and precise information on these changes. I can only reiterate both my request and your commitment.

Since the passing of the bill into commission, I have been contacted by many people via emails. They ask themselves about their reality of tomorrow when they are 59, 60 or 61 years old: will they be subject to the December system or will they benefit from this system? The concern is real and should be heard, understood and answered with clear and correct information.

The issue of pensions is very large.

Today’s debate concerns only a portion of the construction site; other areas remain ⁇ important, such as public service pensions – a matter discussed within the government and in good progress –, the issues related to mixed careers, which I have already talked about several times, whether it be the more precarious situation of women, the lowest pensions or the replacement rate.

These are so many files that are part of this vast construction of pensions and about which we will need to conclude quickly, Mr. Minister.

Finally, given the current situation, I cannot fail to mention the open letter that the UCP, a social movement of the elderly, has addressed to you, Mr. Minister. It concerns the modification of the method of communication of the NPO in favour of e-mail, unless otherwise requested by the pensioner. If you were seventy-five today, Mr. Minister, do you think you would be what you are, i.e. a pro of tweet and blogosphere? I do not know anything. Maybe well, but you would then be among the 17% of people over seventy-five who are at least comfortable with the internet. This means that 83% of citizens of the same age group belong to the category of people suffering from the digital fracture.

In this regard, I offer you a suggestion. Do you not think it would be useful to provide for an adjustment of this decision of the ONP? In other words, do you not think it would be wise to initially invite retirees to opt for e-mail and keep paper mail in reserve? This will not stop you from gradually switching to new technologies. Of course, we are in favor of them. Nevertheless, Mr. Minister, I insist: you must not leave anyone on the side of the road. Not everyone is a pro, like you, with tweets and new technologies.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, the draft law that is presented was announced at the discussion of the law of 28 December 2011. We then decided, including in Parliament, to develop transitional measures to ensure that everything goes well. This resulted in the design that is currently underway.

Mrs Becq, you have asked a question about the state of affairs in the public sector. Well, the bill was approved in first reading on 9 July by the Council of Ministers, an electronic Council of Ministers. After the recession, it will be dealt with in Parliament. You ask how this is related to July 31st. Well, the provision in the law of 28 December 2011 refers to the ratification of royal decrees by Parliament. With regard to the public sector, however, we will not work through a royal decree, but adopt a law. Given the scope, we found it appropriate to have its treatment taken place here in its entirety and not to work through a royal decree, but through a legal provision.

Mrs Becq, you know that, as requested in the government agreement, we received an interesting study from the Planning Agency at the end of June on the pension bonus. The government will address this issue in September. We will ensure that everything is handled in time so that we do not get into trouble and that there is no remaining uncertainty.

In the case of mixed careers, you refer to the unit of careers and the adjustments required in this respect. This is scheduled for 1 January 2013 and we will make the necessary arrangements on time.

Ms. Fonck and Mr. De haeseleer asked questions regarding the need for information.

Through the various call centers, on the basis of the information we have at our disposal, the law of 28 December and the transitional measures that are subject to vote, we can provide the interested parties with preliminary answers. All questions about early retirement are frozen until we have a final arrangement. We do our best to inform applicants about this.

At the RVP, we developed a tool based on Excel to show employees immediately when they can retire. Mr D’haeseleer, once the present text has been approved, we will launch an information campaign. In this, we let the three institutions communicate in the same way.

The opposition has two comments.

To the members of Ecolo-Groen, I would like to point out the following. They submitted a number of proposals to make changes to the pension reform, including amendment no. 2nd That amendment actually consists in the abolition of the famous fixed retirement age, which evolves from 60 to 62 years. If they remove that element, then they must be well aware of what the consequences may be. I looked at it once. With the removal of that condition, persons who began working at the age of 18 in 1980 will be able to retire early at the age of 55. This is the very ambitious reform proposed by Ecolo-Groen. Instead of raising the age from 60 to 62, the age is reduced from 60 to 55 years.

What Ecolo-Groen proposes is a French reform! It is even worse than this, because in France it goes from 62 to 60.

Ecolo and Greens are proposing a reform that reduces the age from 60 to 55 years. This is a reform we have never seen before.

This is a very big reform, but it goes in the opposite direction! I would like to thank Mr. Gilkinet for this proposal but I fear we cannot adopt it.

Mrs. Grosemans, I have heard your comment, we know your position and your opinion. What really surprised me, however, is the following. You say at the end of your speech that you will abstain, as you would have wanted to abstain in your mind at the end of last year. Your party leader has said that too.

The abstinence of the opposition is a very strange attitude. The chairman of your party has said that the pension reform proposes nothing, that it is a nullity. What are you doing in Parliament? Instead of voting against, because it presents nothing, you will abstain. This is a dichotomy that is absolutely unclear to me. That is what I wanted to say to the address of the N-VA.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Pensions has the faculty not to answer questions that disturb him. I had asked questions regarding the bonuses accumulated in the supplementary pension scheme of journalists. I have asked you several times in the committee and here in the plenary session. Either you don’t have the numbers or you don’t want to answer me.

The other faculty you have is to caricate each other’s proposals.

The article amended by the amendment we submitted sets a precise date, namely 31 December 2014, at which the career condition and the age condition of the workers concerned are assessed. What we propose is to effectively maintain the career condition, which is not ridiculous, but to remove for this specific category concerned on 31 December 2014, the age condition to avoid creating a new inequality, as I described it. In fact, consider two workers who started their careers on the same day at the same workplace and whose age difference is almost zero; one will benefit from the old arranged system and the other from the new system with completely disproportionate career differences.

A modern view of calculating pension entitlements must take into account the fact that some workers, in particular in the manual sector, have started their careers at an early age.

This proposal is not intended, as you try to make it believe, to lower the retirement age for all, but a specific category of workers, which escapes your corrective measures. If you hadn’t worked so badly in December, we ⁇ ’t be there today!

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, this repair law is not about small, technical details, but about complete systems, which you wrongly abolished. I think, for example, of the system of journalists. You did so on the basis of incorrect data. Due to your hasty work and sluggishness, upcoming repairs and repairs are needed.

Of course, we are not substantially against corrections to remedy all the shortcomings that you have caused. I have said that we will abstain because of the way you do everything, because that is an insult to our democratic system.