Proposition 54K1751

Projet de loi organisant le financement des mesures de fin de carrière pour les membres de la police locale.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

April 11, 2016

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

financing municipal police pension scheme police

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PP

Voted to reject

Vooruit PS | SP PVDA | PTB

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo LE VB

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

May 26, 2016 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteur, Mrs Thoron, refers to her written report.

Mr. President, Mr. Minister of Pensions, we are well aware of the situation.This judgment of the Constitutional Court of 10 July 2014 came to disrupt the pension system of the police officers and a solution had to be found. Your government has chosen to put in place temporary measures that are worth what they are. They partly answer the problem, but are unequal and therefore cause legal uncertainty. We have filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court and we will see what happens.

What we are currently dealing with is the financing of these measures by local authorities. I have repeatedly asked the Minister of the Interior on this subject and his answer has always been the same: it is the federal government that is responsible for these measures. In other words, the federal government is paying. This is the government’s first lie in the matter. With this bill, you do nothing but get your measures paid by the local authorities, and thus potentially the Regions, by pointing into their pension funds. This is totally contrary to federal loyalty, it is not tolerable. The Solidarity Pension Fund of provincial and local governments will therefore have to pay you between 30 and 40 million euros annually.

What if that’s not enough to fund your actions? Will you leave the addition to the police areas? In the Social Affairs Committee, you, and the majority, simply did not want to commit to supporting the possible addition and simply rejected the amendment we had submitted, which we are put forwarding again today.

On the other hand, yesterday, in the Interior Committee, Minister Jambon made clear that he had only one word and that it was the federal state that would pay the surcharge. I am afraid that this is the second lie of the government in this matter. Indeed, the royal decree settling the matter for 2016 is signed by the Interior Minister himself and clearly provides for a closed envelope of 29 million euros. If this is not enough, the amounts will be reduced proportionately. In other words, the police officers have to deal with it.

We need coherence from the government. The acts of the Minister must be in accordance with his words. He says he will take charge of the addition. Let us incorporate it into our legislation. The government and the majority must be consistent in accepting our amendment that specifically provides that local police zones will not be affected by these measures.

Ladies and gentlemen, join the word with the deeds, take your policy and don’t drop this matter on the back of the Regions and local authorities!

Mr. President, Mr. Minister, Dear colleagues, the bill we are dealing with today is the end of the saga that followed, following the ruling of the Constitutional Court of 10 July 2014 concerning the end of the preferential pension regime for some police officers who were members of the local police.

As a reminder, the law of 21 May 2015 voted in this hall allowed to maintain the preferential regime for police officers who were already in this situation, but also to extend it to police officers who met the conditions of age and career, but who had not yet made the request.

Subsequently, the law of 18 December 2015 allowed to settle the situation of police officers who had permanently lost the benefit of early retirement by allowing them either to value a period of non-activity prior to retirement or to perform a suitable job.

Today, in line with the fiscal announcements of October 2015, the government proposes that the savings generated in terms of pensions, following these two bills, be fully allocated to the police areas to fund their members’ non-activity and adapted work schemes.

The planned budgets will be 29 million in 2016 to reach 36.8 million in 2019. They will cover both the treatment of these police officers, but also the vacation fee, end-of-year premium and employer contributions. Payments to the areas will be made quarterly.

We are aware that the decisions that followed the ruling of the Constitutional Court in July 2014 will have a budgetary impact on the police areas. Therefore, the government hoped to be able to provide a concrete response to this additional difficulty.

I would like to remind, as well as the Minister of Pensions in committee, that the responsibilities do not belong to this government since they are consequences of a decision of the Constitutional Court, that this government has found a solution for police officers who met the conditions of age and career to claim early retirement. Ultimately, this government takes responsibility by transferring the savings made by the National Pension Office back to the police and local authorities.

Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, this is a pragmatic and common sense solution that will ⁇ ease the finances of the police districts, which is obviously not insignificant. It also seems to me that this is a good compromise, otherwise the burden would have been entirely on the police areas. We will therefore support this initiative.

It’s not because I’m in the stadium that I’m going to be too long. Please be calm, Mr Minister. Nevertheless, I still wanted us to acknowledge that, for two legislatures, our pension system has been ⁇ poorly managed, and that careers that were recognised as at risk or in heavy jobs are no more today.

This is the case with the careers of police officers, following a previous pension reform, voted by the majority at the time, which prompted a appeal to the Constitutional Court and ultimately an expansion of the problem.

You ensure the continuity of the two governments with Mr. Bacquelaine. You are trying to fix, with your colleague Jambon, a problem that was created by a government of which you were a part. The problem is that you have to pay the bill to the municipalities themselves. Indeed, it is by preempting a pension fund that they constitute by their contributions that you imperfectly answer the problem. The pension system will provide the Ministry of the Interior with the means from which the Minister of the Interior, through a royal decree, will cover part of the costs of the municipalities.

I say part of the cost, because the royal decree you mentioned in the second reading specifies, however, that things are happening within the limits of the available credits, and that if the credits arising from this levy on the pension funds are insufficient, there will be the application of a system in the mark the franc. The proceeds will be funded by the municipalities themselves. In this, the government, you as the Minister of Pensions, even if you say you have made an effort, and the Minister of the Interior as to it, are not fulfilling its commitment to bear 100% of the costs for the police areas of the consequences of these reforms.

I have submitted this question to the European Parliament and I would like to put it here. Your party, and others in this session, advocate for the possibility of cumulating the functions of a federal deputy, deputy chief or mayor, including a police district chairman, so that local issues are well known and taken into account in the legislation voted.

Our point of view is different. We believe that a position of mayor, shevin or deputies deserves to be exercised 100%. It is important enough to devote all your energy to it. The fact of focusing on a single mandate does not prevent being attentive to what is happening.

Moreover, in this case here, we take your majority and the few mayor and deputy deputies in flagrant crime of measures taken again at the expense of the local political level. We regret it. The solution you are proposing today, if it has the merit to exist, is imperfect because it is the municipalities themselves that must assume, through a levy on their pension fund, the additional costs and that the coverage of costs is not guaranteed 100%. We regret it. That is why we will not be able to fully support the bill under consideration today.

This case deals in fact with the aspect of financing measures that have already been taken and which concern, to sum up, the whole response to the Constitutional Court’s decision on the career goals of certain police members. As much as we did not return to this case on the substantive decisions relating to the measures, since they had been taken elsewhere, so much we discussed in the committee on the financing component.

The finding that we cannot help repeating here is that the payment is based on the savings made in terms of pensions and that will be attributed to local authorities, police areas, etc. It will be clearly insufficient to offset the actual financial impact of the new scheme that has been decided elsewhere. The delta will obviously be borne by the police zones and therefore by the local authorities.

You have been asked several times, Mr. Minister, about the simulations and calculations carried out. You were asked if the impact of this measure would be borne by local authorities.

You answered us that you could not predict the behavior of the police officers. And you added that no other simulations could be made except those taking the numbers from the table. These figures refer to a number of police officers who would potentially be affected by this measure and who would decide to take it.

But, Mr. Minister, I have several official documents showing simulations. And I can tell you that in 2019, the year during which the impact will be the most significant, the difference will be 2 million euros for the federal police and 20 million euros for the local police charged, of course, police areas and therefore local authorities.

The Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Security and Home Affairs, on February 16, 2016, wrote a sympathetic letter that I have here in front of my eyes. This was not discussed in the committee. To all of my colleagues, and especially to those in his group, I would like to read an excerpt from this letter. It is delicious! I quote: “I fully share your concerns that I have never failed to relay to my other government colleagues.” This involves funding for police areas and local authorities. “Indeed, despite my efforts, I unfortunately could not obtain the possibility to cumulate the annual savings achieved on the pensions of the integrated police, which would have allowed, according to the estimates made by my services, to cover the entire cost of the final career regime of police officers and, this, for the entire period 2016-2019.”

Mr. Minister, I would very much like to give you a copy of this letter because, in my opinion, you do not have it. Proof of support, Mr. Minister, despite what you said in the committee, proof of support, dear colleagues of the majority, that effectively, you know pertinently well, despite your words, that there will be a surcharge for the police areas and for the local authorities.

In this regard, there is much to be discussed. Proposals have even seemed to me very reasonable from the local authorities, who have suggested that we can receive, from 2016 onwards, all the savings, which would allow, whether above or below, to be able to compensate for the years that will prove to be very difficult, and ⁇ the year 2019, since the impact for the local police will be 20 million euros.

This is a proposal that, in essence, was quite reasonable. Mr Jambon said so himself. In early 2015, the Minister of the Interior, in the press, had explicitly pledged that the federal government would be responsible for any additional costs of these measures. He said it, he promised it. He did not keep his word. The government did not keep the promise it made in 2015, even though there was a possibility for the federal government to meet that promise reasonably and without any additional burden.

We regret it. If we are in favour of the measure, we prefer another way to avoid shifting this burden to local authorities and police areas. We will therefore abstain.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, first of all, I would like to thank Mrs. Thoron for her appreciation of the importance of helping the police areas with regard to the consequences of the 2014 Constitutional Court judgment.

The aim of this bill is very clearly to allow for better financing of police areas in terms of charges inherent in the organization of career goals. This measure is, therefore, very positive, as we clearly provide funding.

I heard Ms. Ben Hamou who seemed to regret that the Solidarity Pension Fund was punctuated. We do not do it, of course. Simply, we take the savings that are made, since these pensions will not be paid. If they were, the Fund should use this money for this purpose. However, this is not the case, as people will remain either in active or in non-remunerated activity. So it’s a good idea to use these savings to help local police areas. This is the purpose of this bill. There is no other. This is not about organizing the financing of police zones. I have repeated it twenty times in committee, but you find it difficult to understand. For me, it is obvious that a bill on pensions does not serve to finance police areas. This is not our role. The aim is, in this case, to transfer the savings made in pensions to the police sector. You could be very critical if we used the money from the Local Authority Solidarity Fund to finance police zones instead of the federal. Of course, it is not about that. I think you misunderstand the goal. This is a total or partial compensation.

I disagree with Ms. Fonck’s estimates.

by [...]

But I disagree; these are only estimates! Each administration produces its own. We have to share things. No one can say today whether a police officer will choose to remain in activity or not. To predict that they will all cease their business, it is like considering that they have all decided from now on not to continue their careers. This is not what I hear at all. I still know several police areas where many police officers continue to work after 54, 56 or 58 years. Some of them will continue in appropriate functions. I point out that every time a police officer continues this way, it represents an economy for the police area. Otherwise, she should recruit agents. It is therefore necessary to take into account all aspects inherent in this new organisation of career goals – which is, I repeat, the consequence of the judgment of the Constitutional Court in July 2014.

I would like to make the same remarks to Mr. by Gilkinet.

He talks to me about part of the cost: I don’t know anything about it. We even assumed that if it were too much, we ⁇ ’t give everything. To say that this is part of the cost is a petition of principle. It can be done indefinitely, but it is not based on anything. We are completely irrational.

It is simply a matter of anticipating that the savings we will make in terms of pensions will not remain in the pension sector, but will be transferred as part of the financing of the police areas. That is it, and nothing more.

Of course, these answers do not satisfy me at all. What should be remembered is that in the end you are taking transitional measures at the federal level, without taking your responsibilities because you will not pay them. They will be in charge of local authorities and police zones, who will have to assume the consequences of your actions.

Mr. Minister, as much as there will actually be amounts that will be dedicated to police zones to compensate for end-of-care arrangements, as much there will unfortunately be an impact and a postponement to their charge. You say that it is based on nothing, that it is irrational. I answer you that this is based on the position and opinion of Minister Jambon and the services of the Interior.

It is a bit easy, within the same government, to pretend not to know what one of his colleagues did. There, in this case, I have it black on white, signed by Minister Jambon himself. You practice the policy of the oysters, but in reality you transfer a part of the burden to local police areas and to local authorities.

Mr. Minister, I really regret that we were unable to analyze this bill in a Joint Committee on Social and Interior Affairs in the presence of the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Pensions. This would have made the debate more objective. Here the government plays ping-pong.

Evaluations carried out by the Internal SPF show that the funding you planned, recovering a portion of the savings that police areas could have made, is insufficient. You mentioned the assumption that the situation was settled if the supplementary funding was too large, but you were careful to tell us what would happen if it was too little. This is the real question that arises today for the police areas and municipalities that are undergoing a series of measures decided by the federal state, I think in particular the tax shift, and which lead them to financial difficulties. It is easy to go to the restaurant and leave the note to the person you are invited. This is what is happening in this case!

You are still talking about a ruling of the Constitutional Court, which is actually the legal act that led to this surcharge but the original problem is mostly the act that was appealed to the Constitutional Court. This is a first pension reform voted by the previous government, with the parties of Ms. Fonck and Ms. Ben Hamou, who are asking you with me today. You also have to bear some responsibility, Mr. Minister. I repeat that the government has failed to meet its commitment to fund 100% of the surplus costs related to the consequences for the police areas of the pension reform.