Proposition 53K3399

Projet de loi portant modification de la pension de retraite et de la pension de survie et instaurant l'allocation de transition, dans le régime de pension des travailleurs salariés et portant suppression progressive des différences de traitement qui reposent sur la distinction entre ouvriers et employés en matière de pensions complémentaires.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

Feb. 24, 2014

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

work pension scheme survivor's benefit unemployment white-collar worker

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Voted to reject

Groen Ecolo ∉ N-VA LDD

Abstained from voting

VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Bernard Clerfayt (MR) voted to reject.
• Peter Luykx (CD&V) voted to reject.
• Olivier Maingain (MR) voted to reject.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 27, 2014 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, let me enter an open door. It goes without saying that for every party in this hemisphere, social security is a fundamental pillar of our democracy. Moreover, social security is part of our identity and our European model.

That makes the possibility of an inclusive society possible, but the condition is that this is carried by the system and by the people. The condition seems to me also to be that social security and our systems evolve with the facts. If one wants to maintain social security, one must also dare to change it. Then it comes down.

To put it in very general terms: Concretely, I think that social security needs change because the facts themselves change and because the assumptions that ruled at the time that social security was installed no longer apply today. To quote Father Eyskens, in a completely different context, “The facts have outdated the laws, at a certain point.”

In this sense, it is good that you reform the survival pension. It is a more timid attempt to shift some of our social security, especially the survival pension, to a more contemporary reading.

However, it is a more scary attempt. In this sense, it is characteristic of the policy carried out: a small step has been taken. Your great merit is that this has happened after countless years of nothing happened, but one should also not pretend to have avoided the end of the world.

We all know the great pretender, at least who is old enough. If you allow me this excursion, I had to think of it this morning when I heard Professor Vuchelen on the radio. If I am well, he is, by the way, a spiritual companion of you, or he has at least ever been, because nowadays it is never known. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t really good at what I heard. Only the title of his book stands to reflect: Your pension under fire? Fight back up!

That is written literally. I must honestly admit that his statements in an interview this morning shocked me. However, I must also admit that his analysis apparently cuts wood. Otherwise, he will not be raised. He spoke literally of “a policy in failure” and he also said literally – at that point he is absolutely right – “that one cannot be strict enough for the politicians who “have not solved that problem” – the problem of pension provision – “have not solved”. This is a collective responsibility. I look at empty banks, but it happened there. In recent years, the issue has been primarily a socialist issue.

Moreover, Mr. Vuchelen said this morning that it is lost if it is not decided quickly. In other words, if a decision is made quickly, then the problem can still be solved. What shocks me is the suggestion that pensions will be reduced by 15%, which is the figure he predicts. Although I and my party have nothing to do with this, I also feel attracted by what Professor Vuchelen says. Nevertheless, we have ever had any responsibility in relation to pensions. Hopefully this will change, Mr. Van Biesen.

The [...]

In other governments. I must honestly say that I would rather have no responsibility than a responsibility of making people think they are doing something while actually doing nothing at all.

So let’s just ignore this kind of game.

I wanted to explain, Mr. Van Biesen, good colleague, that I also feel addressed when Professor Vuchelen addresses the people with the words: “Don’t put your fate in the hands of politicians.”

Mr. De Croo, I started by saying that I also feel attracted, and so we must feel attracted as a collective class. One is true and the other is also natural, especially that one cannot be strict enough for politicians who have done nothing about that problem. It is an en-en-story. Let that be clear.

Mr. Bracke, I have a question for you. You will give a full presentation of this morning’s radio interview with Professor Vuchelen. I have heard that too. Do you support the solutions he offers?

No, I want to reassure you. I will get there.

Per ⁇ that is more important than all the side cases you are referring to now.

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s well done! There are experts, namely Professor Peersman and Professor Schoors, who wrote a book about our retirement and how we prepare for aging, entitled The Perfect Storm. They write that of all civilized countries, this country is worst prepared for aging. And you, Mrs. Temmerman, call that a detail. For me, that is no detail.

Mr. Bracke, you put words in my mouth that I absolutely didn’t say, but that’s your familiar tactic.

I have asked you a question. I asked you if you support the solutions Mr Vuchelen proposes. That is already. You answered “no”. Then I wonder what all the rest matters. We must solve the problem. You have criticism of others, but I would like to hear what solutions you propose. I do not ask for more.

I didn’t say it was a detail. This is a question that we must definitely address in the future.

The (...)

Mr. Bracke, you always advertise when you are not allowed to speak. You may also be able to let others finish their minds.

On that last point, you are right, Mrs. Temmerman.

Indeed, you did not use the word “details”, but you said that they are statements about the past, which do not matter. I fear that this is so.

Let me speak out. Let us be galant.

It will matter. I can tell you one thing, Mrs. Temmerman, and you know that too: People will soon feel that what hasn’t happened matters.

I will answer your question. The texts are there, in that regard, so you don’t have to wait for the upcoming election program to be announced. We advocate the strengthening of the first pillar, although we are not blind to the fact that a mixture of the two will better protect people. Our concern, and especially my concern, is that those who are unable to take care of that second pillar themselves.

After all, it will only happen to you that you have to do it with the statutory pension, which your party chairman, when he was Minister of Pensions, said was hardly enough to survive. I fundamentally disagree with this approach.

The (...)

Our program is well known. We offer it to the voters. We leave the judgment to the voters. If the voters do not support us, that is the case. I leave the great pretending to you. You just continue to pretend that you are addressing, reforming and resolving things. We will, ⁇ with fewer words, try to make the real work up to ours.

This, too, is also our criticism of this bill on survivor pensions. What is the main disadvantage of this society? This is known as inactivity – people who prefer not to work rather than to work. We believe that this inactivity is not sufficiently addressed.

The transitional allowance system is fine. It is actually a system to give people time. At the same time, I have to say that I regret – we did so with all in the committee and I assume this will continue to be the case – that, unlike in the government statement, there is no extension of the system to married and living together. We can only regret that, and I would like to lose it.

I repeat that the transitional allowance system is okay. It is, by the way, a system that anyone who wants to govern with wisdom will not fail. There must be gradual transitions in this area. It is not meant to shock. The path of graduality is a good path in these.

Just because we have done nothing in the past, that path of graduality will have to be shorter than what we ideally would like. Why Why ? The damage that was incurred in the past by doing nothing must be recovered in some way.

In addition to the transitional benefit and the graduality, it is of course also important that everyone who now has a survival pension will also be able to keep that, that nothing is changed.

Mr. Van Biesen, if you want to change that, you have to do it, but we won’t. Pacta sunt servanda. It is as ready as something.

It is also good that the minimum age to be eligible for that survival pension is gradually increased by six months per year over a period of ten years.

It is also good that survivor pension is awarded from 45 years to 50 years, if the spouse dies no earlier than 1 January 2025.

Now I come to it. It is pulled up to 50 years, but for people over 50 years of age the fall of inactivity persists. While everyone should be encouraged to participate as much and for as long as possible in the labour market, here – which is why we will not support this draft – is an opportunity to push that boundary.

In between, I will follow the example of our liberal colleagues, I will also talk about the Flemish government. With the states it is noticeable that they are working, in the guidance and introduction to the labour market, to raise that boundary, Mr. De Croo. It’s not about pensions, it’s not about benefits, it’s about jobs.

I agree with the Minister of Pension. In the next government, the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Pensions should be the same person. That is obvious. Mr. De Croo, Mrs. De Coninck, you will have to choose. It doesn’t matter to me, but it must be the same minister because it’s about the same policy.

I return to the states. They are undergoing an operation that I have recently read about. It is an operation in which people up to sixty years – imagine – will be assisted in their access to the labour market. On the other hand, with the survival pension, we put the lat at fifty years, which is absolutely not as it should be. In fact, you are pushing a large group of people out of the labour market through survival pensions. In fact, you, in our opinion, thus give a totally wrong signal.

It is also a signal that is associal – I wik my words – and exclusive. It has an exclusion effect. Social is work. That is social. Then someone contributes to the group. Social ⁇ does not mean, although this, unfortunately, according to some colours of the current political hemisphere is different, dependent on benefits. Subsidy dependence is what we absolutely do not want. Everyone needs to be prepared for work.

By the way, only then can we ensure that our social security is both social and secure.

However, it is different. I heard this in the committee. I suppose it was a slip of the tongue, but the minister referred in the committee to a communiqué from the FGTB in which the system was found perfect. If that is the norm for you, I will take note of it. In any case, this is not the case for us.

I would like to add another final consideration. In the present draft, we are talking about survival pensions. Amendments to the supplementary pensions have also been submitted.

Such a method is very absurd. The issue is simply attached to the design, which, in our opinion, is absolutely not the way this should be done. It is indeed unheard of adding adjustments to the system of supplementary pensions in the form of amendments to a draft law on the reform of survivor pension.

This is why we will not support the present draft.

There are "only" 28 speakers left by the end of the evening, not counting the rapporteurs and the response of ministers.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, when addressing a problem as sensitive as survival pensions, the main trap lies in opposing those who believe that the equity of social redistribution should be established between households and those who, on the contrary, believe that it should be established only between those who contribute to solidarity through their work and contributions.

Our group refuses to fit into such a logic, because our social security is the product of a complex history that it would be regrettable to wipe out, under the pretext that the socio-historical conditions that presided over its establishment are changing.

Indeed, the individualization of rights is a phenomenon in constant progression and the approximately 600,000 people who benefit from a survival pension prove sufficiently that this derivative right is still very socially anchored. It also has a strong emotional density, which appeared at the end of 2011 when, in a quite dishonest way, the press announced that the government was about to abolish survival pensions.

Our group disagrees with those who claim that the individualization of rights is a spontaneous and irreversible phenomenon. To believe that things will go well by themselves, because more and more women are engaged in employment and occupation, is an illusion that helps to preserve the weight of derived rights, even as restrictions are imposed on the direct rights of those who acquire them through their work. That is why the PS group will vote on this bill, but with substantive remarks on the logic that governs it.

The real problem of the complexity of the return to employment of the target audience, essentially female, or simply a larger professional investment is due to several factors. We are accustomed to talking about the employment trap generated by survival pensions, but as we expressed in commission, the trap is not merely a calculation of income, let alone for cultural reasons, according to which low-skilled workers would be less likely to return to employment and gain individual rights.

The trap is above all that of the painfulness of the profession, the absence of valorisation and ascending trajectory of the function, the schedules not compatible with a family or private life, the travel between the place of work and the home much longer. The reality is also that many workers find themselves in precarious employment situations, ⁇ in low-skilled sectors, as well as those of part-time and temporary work, where they are ⁇ vulnerable due to the increased competition on the job market.

Our group does not understand how the so-called “transition period” was conceived. The logic would have been to calculate proportionally in two factors: the duration of the withdrawal from the labour market and the social reality at the time of widowhood.

First, the period of withdrawal from the labour market requires an appropriate period for these women to redefine their skills and above all to assess their suitability with the current labour market. When return to employment is subject to external pressures in such a tight timing – here unemployment after 24 months – our fear is that these women see themselves in the obligation to take any job, often below their initial qualifications, because the specific sector related to their basic education has evolved sharply.

Then, the social reality at the time of widowhood must be taken into account. Twenty-four months, regardless of the number of children in charge and the demands of conciliating family life with work life, is to deny the fact that these demands continue to rhythm life times, to structure the priorities and choices of these people. You answered us in commission that the family allowance for the orphan child of father or mother is substantially higher. Again, the job trap is not only a matter of calculating allowance, but also of calculating quality of life.

The government agreement, which stipulated that survival pension at the pension age would be granted only to the only spouse who was at least thirty years old at the death of their spouse, would not have passed the cap of the Constitutional Court. This idea was fortunately abandoned because our group would not have accepted it.

Nothing is explained about what is meant by “early and suitable employment support”. This sounds a bit like a key-on-door slogan without knowing exactly if the regional services are really able to adequately accompany this particular audience. Nothing is explained either about the immediate right to an unemployment benefit and its calculation.

Finally, our group believes that the surviving spouse who meets the age requirement to receive survival pension cannot be penalized. The employment trap also exists for these people. The bill provides that an optional right could be authorised under certain conditions by a deliberate decree in the Council of Ministers. Why not have provided this right of option for the benefit of transitional allowances directly in the law?

Given the age of these people, the age gradually increased from 45 to 50 years, and the reality of the labour market, it is understood that for our group, the option towards employment cannot constitute an irreversible choice. Such persons shall retain the possibility of choosing, in relation to their occupational position, the status which is most appropriate to their life situation. The PS will vote on this bill but will remain vigilant about its consequences. I thank you.

I had a question for Mr. Sampaoli but he answered in his last sentence. We have real fears that the grid of the social security net will be further enlarged with this measure. When I hear the number of criticisms that Mr. Sampaoli formulates regarding the consequences of this bill on a certain audience – I will detail them later –, what will he vote for?

You said you would vote for. You have obviously very poorly negotiated this text which is, for us, totally unbalanced in terms of solidarity. Either I misunderstood you, or your votes are not consistent with your words.

Although the members of the majority are more or less softly or vigorously defending it, this is a measure that has no other objective than budgetary. The savings achieved by this amendment to the Survivor Pension Act will be 13 million euros from 2020. In zero time, it will have a cost, and then structurally, it will allow to ⁇ an economy.

Beyond this budgetary aspect, I would like to denounce the ideological background that underpinned the debate in the Committee on Social Affairs and the remarks of today of Mr. Bracke and the N-VA. This ongoing suspicion towards those who benefit from our solidarity system of pleasing themselves in their situation is problematic and challenges the universal character of social security. Workers are paying. If one has children, one receives family allowances; if one accesses the pension, one receives a pension; if one is unemployed, one receives an unemployment allowance; if one is sick, one receives a reimbursement of health care. But if one expects from the system that for each individual, one reaches a zero result between contribution and allocation, one is no longer in an effective system of universal solidarity. However, this is the direction you seem to want to tend.

Systematically, the federal government’s choice in the field of social security over the decisions it made during that legislature has been to weigh the future cost of solidarity, in this case in terms of pensions, on the beneficiaries themselves. Effective careers need to be increased, regardless of working conditions and workers’ capabilities. Similar periods should be reduced. It is necessary to review survival pensions, ... These are measures that mostly affect women and which are a transfer of pensions spending to other budgets.

Employees are forced to work longer but are unable to do so. This is a transfer to health care and disability benefits. A widowed woman or man, although most often the woman is the beneficiary of this allowance, benefits from this transitional allowance and is then unemployed. It is true! This is no longer the issue of pensions, but of unemployment benefits. Overall, nothing has been resolved.

I do not deny that there is a real issue that is becoming more and more important. This is the future of our pensions. The studies of the Study Committee on Ageing show this very clearly. The real solution is to create jobs and not exclude those who are looking for work from unemployment benefits. Working-time sharing formulas must be found to allow both young workers to have their first experience and fatigued older workers to gradually rise up. An alternative structural financing of social security should be provided starting from capital incomes. This is how you will encounter the challenge of financing pensions and not by crushing, that and that, the rights of the beneficiaries.

As a result of this law, widows or widows will likely resume work at the end or before the end of the benefit of this transitional allowance. This had already been the case before. People who receive a survival pension choose to marry again and thus give up the benefit of this survival pension. They choose to work again. They didn’t wait for you to do that. If some resume work after receiving this insertion allowance, the number of poor workers and single-parents close to poverty may rise sharply.

Why Why ? Because the only age criterion chosen in the law to decide whether, and for how long, one can benefit from this insertion allowance is too short to grasp the complex reality that depends on the difficulty, the pain associated with mourning, but also the number of children, their age, the ability to find accommodation solutions, the economic reality of the regions concerned, the skills of the workers. All these aspects are completely ignored. I heard Mr. Sampaoli said that it would have had to have a more subtle approach, establishing a personal balance sheet for each of the people to see what was the necessary duration of this allocation in order to avoid that, tomorrow, a person finds himself in a situation of poverty.

It is the lack of finesse of this approach that leads me to say that this is a strictly budgetary measure that is contrary to the objective of solidarity. With this measure, the net of the social security net is only widening, which will lead to reaching a ⁇ vulnerable audience, in this case potentially single women with one or more children.

As you said in the committee, this text has been agreed with the social partners. Please be careful, Mr. Secretary of State. It was an agreement on a comprehensive package containing other measures that were voted last week, and we supported. I think here of the career unit and the taking into account of the last months of work in the calculation of the pension, which are measures of good alloy. As for this specific measure, it poses a real problem of solidarity and redistribution.

As environmentalists, we are fighting for the individualization of rights. But it is nevertheless "picking", Mr. Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen members of the majority, to find that this principle is only applied when it diminishes the rights of the interested parties, in this case the interested parties. It is really difficult for me to accept that we are here advocating for individualization while we have done exactly the opposite in other matters of social security, which is why we will not be able to support this text.

Among the comments made, it was said that this was a budget measure. not at all. The purpose of the measure is by no means budgetary. This measure is intended to avoid a situation where people will find themselves trapped in employment.

The current situation should be explained. In the past, in many households, one person worked and the other stayed at home. Today, in most cases, things are no longer like this: both members of the household are working. If there is a tragedy, the death of one of the two, we wish that the widow or widow is no longer forced to choose: survival pension or the continuation of his work. We want him to be able to continue working as before, but to receive help during this difficult period, both emotionally and financially, and not face a compulsory choice, quite inhumane in my opinion.

You say we are pushing people into a situation of precariousness. not at all. The survival pension as before, yes: this survival pension was very low; people had to endure this situation longer without accumulating pension rights anymore.

This is the big difference. If the survivor, after two years, remains in a difficult situation and does not find employment, at least during this period of unemployment, he will have accumulated pension rights, contrary to what happened before. In fact, even people in precariousness will no longer be forced to live with a tiny pension until the end of their days.

In the comments made by Mr. Bracke, there were many matters that had little to do with survival pensions. As for the survival pension, however, I regret that you do not support it. After all, this is a measure that, especially, will no longer push many women into poverty. I am sorry that you do not support that.

You have comments on two points. One of them is the granting of the same rights to legally living together. I have stated in the committee that I am in favor of a major reform that takes into account all derived rights. It would be reasonably dangerous to do so only for survivor pension and not for the other derived rights. We have, however, blunted the door in this draft by saying that there is an authority to the King to do so if a greater reform takes place. I think we are giving a clear signal that this is the direction we want to go.

You also talked about the situation of the older widows who would be unemployed. You say that an effort needs to be made in the area of activation. That is right. If I look at the statistics of the VDAB, then the VDAB activated six fifty-five-plus over the past year. I think the VDAB may need to put a tooth in that area.

You criticize the fact that the supplementary pensions are added here through an amendment. I admit that we would do it differently if there were more time. The social partners, who gave an unanimous opinion on this issue, asked us to approve it as soon as possible because they recognize the importance of this agreement. The importance of this agreement is that we want everybody, in the long run, to have access to a supplementary pension, especially those who are in the situation of the former status of workers. The discrimination between workers and employees in the field of supplementary pensions should be eliminated. My colleague Monica De Coninck has taken a very big first step in harmonising the statute of workers and servants in the area of carnival and redemption compensation. I am pleased that the social partners are able to keep up with this agreement. This is a big step forward in ensuring that everybody can get a comfortable retirement in the long run. Supplementary pensions will be an essential element.

Whenever I come here with a draft on pensions, I hear you say that it is not the big reform and that it is not enough. It is true that the reform of survivor pensions by itself will not solve the problem of ageing.

I have heard this argument five or six times. Every time I propose a reform, the response is that that reform is in itself insufficient. Per ⁇ you should take a look at the overview. If you put together the different pieces of the puzzle, you will see that during this reign, aging was addressed in a positive climate and that there were huge steps forward in that area by many members of the government, especially also by colleague Monica De Coninck.

Mr. Speaker, you are saying paradoxical things. You say that in the current system, beneficiaries of survival pensions are forced to make a choice. But in the new system, they do not have to do so, the choice is imposed on them. Either they have found a job, and you find it great because it creates retirement rights, or you push them to unemployment in the absence of employment contract.

Knowing that your government has decided to accelerate the degressivity of unemployment benefits, the diagnosis we make is that, due to lack of finesse in the approach to your system, you will push families, but not all, into a situation of even stronger precariousness. I think of single-parent families with multiple children, with custody difficulties and difficulties in finding work. These families no longer benefit from this income guarantee that was the survival pension.

The system you set up does not sufficiently take into account the characteristics of some families who could still escape poverty through survival pension. This is the reason why we cannot support this project.

Mr. Minister, first of all, if the cohabitating aspect were the only problem, then we would support this draft.

Second, you refer to the total of the efforts made. Compared to what has happened in the last fifteen years, you have indeed done something in the recent past. However, even if I sum up all the measures and look at the expected cost of aging, expressed as a percentage of GDP, and the path you have taken, I will continue to say with conviction, and with the figures in hand, that you have really done too little.