Proposition 54K2718

Projet de loi relatif à la non prise en considération de services en tant que personnel non nommé à titre définitif dans une pension du secteur public, modifiant la responsabilisation individuelle des administrations provinciales et locales au sein du Fonds de pension solidarisé, adaptant la règlementation des pensions complémentaires, modifiant les modalités de financement du Fonds de pension solidarisé des administrations provinciales et locales et portant un financement supplémentaire du Fonds de pension solidarisé des administrations provinciales et locales.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

Oct. 19, 2017

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

public administration civil service pension scheme retirement conditions

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Voted to reject

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI PVDA | PTB PP

Abstained from voting

∉ VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Olivier Maingain (MR) voted to reject.
• Ine Somers (Open Vld) voted to reject.
• Monica De Coninck (Vooruit) abstained from voting.
• Laurent Devin (PS | SP) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 29, 2018 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteurs are Mrs Thoron and Dumery.

I would like to refer back to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, this is quite unusual but for the sake of objectivity, I will start positively with the flowers - roses! Indeed, you have a merit in this file – I would be tempted to say only one – but it is worth emphasizing! You have repatriated to the Pension Fund of the local authorities the 121 million euros from the salary moderation contribution. This was worth pointing out from the beginning of the debate.

It is, however, a just return of things; indeed, it is normal that the contributions paid by local authorities for their agents for about thirty years serve to finance the pensions of their agents. It had to be obtained. You got it from your colleague, Mrs. De Block, and this is a positive point for municipal finances.

In this regard, having convinced your colleague of the pertinence of the measure, one could have imagined, hoped for a few years of feedback – I didn’t say thirty, let’s be reasonable! This would obviously have helped drastically improve the situation of the Fund and therefore the finances of the local authorities. Unfortunately, you did not prefer this option.

Now, let’s go back to this new pension reform. Since the beginning of this legislature, you have not ceased to attack our pensions. From the beginning, you imposed the pension at age 67, complicated access to early pension, removed the pension bonus, imposed an index jump and I will stay there. These measures have affected all pensioners and future pensioners.

However, it was in the public service that your attacks were the most virulent. In addition to what you have imposed on everyone, public service workers must undergo your specific measures. These are the real emissary goats of your government.

Under the pretext of harmonization, you have taken advantage of this in order, at every opportunity, to generalize the least advantageous system. Thus, you have removed the taking into account of the years of study and it is now a matter of removing the preferential multiples. We have discussed this in the topical issues and we will return to it in the next sessions.

With these measures, teachers, teachers, firefighters, military and railway workers will have to work longer to earn less.

Simulations of the Public Sector Pension Service now integrated into the SFP (Federal Pension Service) show that with your measurements and only with the removal of the accounting of the years of study, a higher secondary teacher will have to work two more years and will lose 116,71 euros per month.

Today, Mr. Minister, with this project, you are pushing the nail and what a nail!

Dear colleagues, you are about to decide that the years spent in public service as a contractual agent will no longer give rise to a public pension. Specifically, as you acknowledged — or rather your head of cabinet who was on your side in commission — people who are unfortunate to be appointed late will lose up to 500 euros gross per month. This is evident from a table that you have distributed but also from concrete cases and not simulations.

You will tell me that this concerns those who are appointed late. But some take years to be appointed. Their organizing power sometimes makes them endure ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty years before appointing them. They will lose a lot. But it is not their fault. You will punish them.

Five hundred euros a month is huge! Do you know what this can mean for a pensioner? Especially because this is a complementary impact to those of other measures.

For us, this mixed pension is a real social regression that penalizes agents in the service of the population. They ensure the functioning of the State, the Regions, the Communities, the local authorities. This project is ⁇ a significant decline, as indefensible in the level of social protection of workers as in the status of public service personnel.

To hear you, I really feel like I hear the story of the watering waterer. In Wallonia alone, 70% of local staff is not appointed. In Flanders, the majority of local staff is appointed. It is in the socialist communes that there is the least number of appointed personnel. And now you say you have to wait decades. Maybe that is the problem. We should have done as in Flanders and named faster. We would not have the problem that you denounce and that the minister is just solving.

Mr Flahaux, this project does not only affect municipalities. But it is true that many municipalities name too little. I will talk about Herstal, the municipality I am managing. We regularly try to have a set of nominations on an objective basis because I think this is part of the public service and the moral commitment to the civil servants we recruit.

With this project, you are once again seriously compromising the public services our fellow citizens benefit from. In reality, it is an ideological measure with budgetary vocation, to make short, medium and long-term savings. We have felt it since the beginning of the legislature and we have felt it in this debate. These are savings on the back of pensioners and that break our public services.

With this kind of measures and with the force of making public service less and less attractive, your government – it is a right-wing ideology – confirms its willingness to weaken the State and its missions. This is not the choice of our party and we are fighting this with virulence. We advocate for quality public services.

Furthermore, beyond these global considerations, the government’s project disregards, ignores, disregards the most elementary legal rules. The State Council made fundamental observations in this regard and the government simply denied them. First, there is a significant decline in social rights that are, however, protected by the Constitution. Then, the State Council noted that with this measure, the government creates discrimination. You will tell me that we are removing others. But we create it! In fact, nothing can justify that a person appointed before 1 December 2017 can benefit from a public pension, whereas a person appointed the next day must be content with a mixed pension.

This brings me to a crucial question, that of the retroactivity of the law. When I was told last week that there were amendments, I thought that we would at least fix that problem. What a baby! Indeed, there are some technical adjustments among the majority amendments but, despite these amendments, the government provides that its law will apply to persons appointed after November 30, 2017. Since the date has passed for several months, there is a retroactive effect.

In doing so, the Government grants its law a retroactive effect that infringes, without justification, the legal certainty and the principle of non-retroactivity. The question was raised yesterday in the committee. Everybody knows that the retroactivity of a law can only be admitted on the basis of an adequate justification and a goal of general interest, especially, as is the case in this case, when it penalizes our fellow citizens.

The project we are discussing today seriously undermines the legitimate expectations of public service workers. Indeed, when they entered office, workers could legitimately expect to be entitled, in the event of their appointment, to a public pension from the beginning of their employment. That was the rule of the game. With your measure, this will no longer be the case. You thus betray, in some way, the trust of workers who have engaged in public service. That’s why we have re-imposed an amendment that stipulates that the system only applies to new entrants in the public service. Thus, they will know what the rules of the game are when engaging in public service.

Finally, the government’s proposal disregards the rules for the distribution of powers with federal authorities. This has caused a conflict of interest.

Let me return to the impact on workers. The Minister is obviously aware of the enormous loss that his project will entail to them. He is lucid. I have no doubt. He acknowledged it in the debates. That is why it sets up the second pillar: to compensate for this loss. What is the second pillar? This is a smoke screen. This will not compensate the workers for the loss of money. Beyond favouring the second pillar instead of the first, which brings us back to ideology, and which constitutes a shift, while only the first pillar is solidary and solid, this does not offset the difference. This is false and you should not believe it. I will outline three reasons.

First, while the measure has a retroactive effect – the mixed pension will have a retroactive effect – the establishment of a second pillar will only apply for the future. There may be a backservice, but you know like me that it is theoretical. You will tell me what backservice you are going to do at the federal level compared to someone who has been in the administration for ten years, fifteen years, twenty years. You will tell me which municipality will be able to provide a backservice for those workers. We will not be able to compensate these years with the second pillar. This is the first element of a major deflation. Much of the career of some agents will be purely and simply sacrificed.

Secondly, contributions paid to the second pillar of pension will not always be sufficient to cover the loss of statutory pension. When I say “not always,” I feel like it will be “very rarely.” According to the explanation of the reasons for your law, in order to compensate for the loss of the statutory pension, an average level of financing of about 6% of the salary would be required. There can be different percentages. The figures confirm this rate by various simulations. Others go even further. At least we are talking about 6%. Here we are talking about 2 and then 3 percent. So, we are below those 6% and largely!

Third, the supplementary pension will not necessarily be granted to all contractual employees of the public service. If the federal authority has indicated its intention to introduce a second pillar of pensions from 1 January 2018 – with the postponement of the adoption of the law, I do not know what the final date is and we will have the opportunity to hear you soon, I suppose – this will not necessarily be the case for all public authorities.

As pension matters are clearly a federal competence, some entities simply do not have the competence to establish a second pillar for their contractual agents. This was revealed by the State Council. The federal authority is responsible for pensions. The State Council goes further by stating that if the federal establishes a second pillar of pension for its contractual entities, it must, according to identical rules, establish and finance a second pillar for the contractual entities of its federated entities.

I know that there have been discussions on this issue in the committee. There can be no discrimination. The Government sat down on this fundamental remark of the State Council, claiming that the State Council was mistaken in arguing that the introduction of a supplementary pension did not fall within the field of pensions.

This justification had somehow been anticipated by the State Council as it reiterated the following argument: "The circumstance that the law may be linked not to the competence of the federal state in matters of public pensions but to its competence in matters, in particular, of labour law or social security, does not change this conclusion."

When, in the committee, this comment was made to you, Mr. Minister, you simply replied that it was merely an interpretation. What a contempt for the State Council!

In fact, the federal operates a transfer of charges to federal entities. With the mixed pension system, the federal government will pay fewer pensions. We have shown that this will decrease. Therefore, it is the federal entities that will have to finance the second pillar. It is therefore a transfer of charges from the federal to the federal entities.

Some will not have the means to afford a second pillar of pension for their employees. Contrary to what some might imagine – let’s not pretend – some local authorities are in financial difficulties. Some are placed under custody. Some do not have the ability to raise funds for this second pillar and, therefore, their agents or other structures may not have a second pillar. In the end, they will be punished and will find themselves in situations of putting in competition between public authorities. Some public authorities will be more attractive because they will be able to provide a second-pillar pension while others will not have the necessary resources. It is intolerable!

Mr. Minister, you repeat repeatedly that you will help local authorities to finance the establishment of a second pillar of pensions, stating that you have planned an incentive. It is true that there is one, but I would rather put the term between guillemets. I will come back in a moment.

What is the planned mechanism? Local authorities that implement a second pillar for their contracts will benefit from a 50% reduction in their accountability contributions. In fact, this is a discriminatory system. In fact, only the administrations that will pay a accountability contribution will benefit from it. Why not apply the incentive to the basic contribution so that everyone can benefit from it? It would have been fairer. We had the opportunity to discuss this. I do not understand why you have chosen only the municipalities that pay this liability contribution. You could have foreseen it for everyone; it would have been non-discriminatory.

Then, it is not an incentive, because it assumes that one is encouraged to do something. However, in this case, it is both an incentive for some and an outpouring effect for others, i.e. those who already have a second pillar of pension. This is mostly the case in Flanders. I do not have a value judgment on the presence of this system in several municipalities, but I find that your measure will create an abuse effect for these. Since it is not the federal who pays the addition, it is not he who finances the incentive, but rather the local authorities. We know that the Fund operates in a closed envelope. If some take advantage of it, others will take advantage of it. This aspect of aubaine effect will therefore favor Flanders at the expense of Brussels and Wallonia.

Indeed, on the basis of a projection of the Federal Pension Service, it is shown that the Flemish local authorities would benefit – from the current figures – of a net bonus of 8 million and that this means an addition paid by the Wallon local authorities at competition of 6 million and for the Brussels local authorities of 2 million, nothing but over a year. In other words, Wallonia and Brussels will pay for Flanders. I said in commission: "What Flemish local authorities?" It is known that it is relatively concentrated. The situation may evolve, but Flanders are largely advantageous.

Why this Aubaine Effect? It was not an incentive, it was not necessary.

It is therefore not surprising, therefore, that a conflict of interest was initiated by the COCOF Parliament. We cannot understand how the MR, the only French-speaking party of the majority, supports this shift to Flanders.

Finally, I come to the final point of your reform: the issue of financing the Pension Fund of the local authorities. We know that this Fund is facing financing and cash problems. We will not deny it, we have never denied it. The problem is not new. As early as 2011, Minister Daerden had to bring a solution, which had been the subject of broad consensus at the time. This solution was transitory and was part of a logic of mass appointments but which, as Mr Flahaux said recently, was not found on the ground despite the incentive mechanisms for appointment that were provided in this law. For various reasons, local authorities have not followed this logic and, today, it is clear that a new solution needs to be brought. And you bring one.

But your solution is to reduce the pension to be paid by the Fund. You say, “To solve the problem, the Fund will pay less pension tomorrow – but “tomorrow” is after tomorrow! – and thus thus the problem of financing will be settled because the Fund will only pay the part for the statutory pension.” but as you do it in mixed pension, it will pay less and less.

However, Mr. Minister, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the proposed solution does not solve the problem in the short and medium term. The burden on municipalities, despite your reform, will increase in the coming years. Based on estimates from the Federal Pension Service, I will take two examples. It is known that all these simulations are performed at a certain time and they are by definition inaccurate. They are determined by parameters, but the reality is different. This allows for an indication. If we take the city of Liège, the increase in the basic and accountability contribution would generate, within a few years, an increase of 30 million. For the city of Brussels, it is 15 million.

We won’t get to those numbers, that’s clear. However, these assessments do not take into account the implementation of the second pillar. Because even if it is partially compensated, there is still 50% to be paid. However, there is still a part to be taken care of and this will therefore increase the burden on the municipalities.

I am not talking here about the budgetary impact of the repatriation of the accountability contribution on the fiscal year, which you have decided to implement for fund cash reasons. There were other solutions. You have decided to transfer this aspect to the treasury of the communes, not only to the treasury of the local authorities but also to the ordinary budget and therefore – you are a municipalist like me, you know what this means – by making the drawing of the budget even more complicated, at the expense of the citizens.

We know that the proposed solution is neither appropriate nor just.

It should be noted that, unlike all other pension schemes in Belgium, the local authorities are the only ones still to bear fully the burden of the pensions of their employees, without the intervention of the federal state – for the 121 million, this is another thing, it is a repatriation of what is owed to them –, without alternative financing, as it is said in social security in general.

We appeal to work together so that we can finally reach, within a reasonable time, a lasting solution for the pensions of local authorities that is not done on the back of the workers. We advocate that, through external and partial financing, we expand the basis of solidarity and that a structural solution, concerted with local authorities, be quickly found. In this context, we have submitted an amendment in this direction.

Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, these are some elements that I wanted to redevelop here, in the plenary session, on this important topic for workers, for public authorities and for public service.

As a conclusion, the mechanisms provided for in this bill are legally fragile and are likely to be cancelled by the Constitutional Court. But they are especially catastrophic for public service workers who are appointed after November 30, 2017, catastrophic for the federal entities that will have to compensate for the unilateral decisions of the federal, catastrophic for the local authorities, Brussels and Walloon, who will finance the incentives in the second pillar of the Flemish local authorities – this is the abubaine effect I mentioned. They are also catastrophic for the financial balance of local authorities whose Pension Fund, despite the reform, remains the only pension system to finance itself alone. According to the simulations, these reforms will lead to an explosion of burdens for local authorities by 2023.

Mr. Minister, this is again an ideological reform with a budgetary vocation, done on the back of workers, future pensioners and public services. So you will understand that we will vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, this bill was discussed for hours in the committee. Like then, I have listened closely to Mr. Daerden’s speech today, who I consider to be an expert in this area. We do not always agree with each other, but he has good knowledge of the file. It won’t surprise you that we have a slightly different opinion on the current bill.

To begin with, it is a good bill, because it consists of three parts, which together form a logic and which make the whole coherent. The first part is about the mixed pension. The other two parts, which are ⁇ equally important, concern the generalization of the second pillar of pensions, the supplementary pension for contractual staff members and the introduction of a responsibility mechanism, reducing part of the pension invoice for local governments that build up a sufficiently high supplementary pension for their contractual staff members. There is a logic in that package, and it was thus included in the government agreement. The N-VA considers it a good thing that this can be knocked off now. This was also discussed in the Committee A. There has been sufficient discussion on the three parts.

In this way, as regards mixed pensions, it will also end a kind of improper use of late appointments, as is the case with many local governments. Indeed, many officials are employed for years as contractual staff members — and therefore contributions are paid in that sense — but they are often still appointed as statutory staff members at the end of their career. As a result, they receive a statutory pension for the entire career, while they have not contributed in that way. This measure thus appears to be the logica zelve. It’s a little strange that it took so long before this was adjusted.

It also concerns equal treatment between the contractual staff members themselves. So far, those involved are in great uncertainty. I am now speaking as a mayor, I have seen it in my municipality as well. They wondered if they would still be appointed at the end of their career. Sometimes they were even predicted.

For some it happened, for others not. This is a flagrant violation of the principle of equality between contractual employees. Also for those people, this design provides, first, security and, secondly, equal treatment, which makes them get better, at least if we decide to do so today.

When introducing the mixed pension, we also respect the acquired rights, as the Minister does with all pension reforms that are implemented. In order not to undermine legitimate expectations, it was stated from the outset that this would only apply to appointments after 30 November 2017. Fortunately, the introduction of the conflict of interest has not changed that either. From the beginning, it was also clearly announced that those who had already been appointed or were appointed before that date would still fall under the old system.

This pension reform generally does not mean that the pension of the public sector staff will fall. The figures show that 60% of the staff in local governments is already contractual and the trend towards further contractualization is growing. The entry into force of the mixed pension is linked to a political commitment to fill a supplementary pension, the second pillar for contractual staff. The federal government creates a sound legal framework for the supplementary pensions in the public sector. It is a flexible legislative framework that gives the various negotiating committees in the public sector the freedom to supplement it in a very concrete and more detailed manner, but at the same time defines a minimum social protection that each supplementary pension scheme must meet.

If that law exists, the various public employers can start building a supplementary pension plan for their staff. In the long run, this will contribute to closing the gap between the pension income of contractual and statutory employees. It is therefore not only about the inequality between contractual staff members; in the long run, the gap between contractual and statutory staff members will also be reduced, though this will take a little longer.

For the federal contractual staff, the competent minister has already released an annual envelope of EUR 32 million, amounting to 3 % of the wage mass, for the construction of a supplementary pension. Also at the Flemish level, an envelope is provided for the construction of a 3 % supplementary pension. We know that these pension plans do not exist at this time, but from the approval of this bill it will be possible to do so quite quickly, as the legal basis is there then.

Finally, this draft law is also based on the broader tendency to seek harmonisation of the different pension schemes for civil servants, employees and self-employed, although this latter group is not directly concerned here.

Based on the reasons I have just stated, the N-VA group will fully support this reform.

Mr. Minister, I would like to thank you for the work and perseverance with which you have dealt with this matter. It has had many feet on the earth.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, the weeks follow and resemble, because five months ago, day by day, we started the debates on the bill commonly called mixed pension; five months we wait to conclude a reform that goes in the right direction in favor of the local authorities. And I am shocked when I hear Mr. Daerden tell us that this law is catastrophic. What was catastrophic was the Daerden law for the finances of our municipalities. Thanks to Minister Bacquelaine, who first froze part of this reform on 1 January 2017 and who today corrects the most difficult aspects of the said law, we can today be proud to have on the table the Bacquelaine law which will be very positive for the local authorities.

The [...]

It is the quality that matters, not the quantity.

The bill pursues two objectives: first, to ensure long-term funding of pensions and, second, to encourage all public sector employers to offer a complementary pension scheme to their contractual staff.

More specifically, Minister Bacquelaine’s reform is structured around three measures: the first aims to establish the mixed pension, the second removes the regularization contribution, the third brings a reversal of part of the wage moderation contribution.

With regard to the establishment of the mixed pension, should we remind you that the establishment of a mixed pension is a claim formulated for years by the Union of Cities? The aim is to put an end to a widespread practice: the late appointment of officers, which is clearly one of the reasons for the deficit of the Local Solidarity Pension Fund.

From now on, officials will receive a public sector pension, paid by this fund, from the moment they are appointed, and an employee pension for the duration of their career provided as contractual. For this part, the pension will be covered by the overall management of wage workers, which belongs to the federal state.

It should be noted that the bill was approved by both the CSC and the Liberal Trade Union within Committee A, as it provides, in parallel with the introduction of the mixed pension, provisions encouraging public authorities to offer a supplementary pension to contractual staff.

Indeed, the granting of a supplementary pension to contractual staff of the public sector merely meets a requirement of fairness in relation to the level of pensions received by statutory employees. To ⁇ this, the government provides for a financial incentive that may amount to up to 50% of the cost of premiums paid to finance a complementary pension scheme. The financial incentive will be granted taking into account the existence of a pension plan as of 1 January 2020. Retarded municipalities who want to take advantage of the incentive therefore have more than two years to set up a pension plan that provides for a premium level of 2% in 2020 and 3% in 2021.

The federal government will also be the example by introducing, from 2018, a supplementary pension scheme for members of its contractual staff. As my colleague said, a budget of 32 million euros is planned for this purpose.

The second part of this reform aims to eliminate the regularization contribution. The bill also ends the contribution a local authority would have owed from January 1, 2017, under the famous Daerden Act, if a member of the contractual staff is appointed permanently more than five years after his entry into service. This is an important burden that municipalities will escape. The Ministry had already frozen this since January 1, 2017. It must be emphasized. The difference in the amount between the pension contribution due for employees and that due for statutory employees, and this, during the entire contractual period preceding the appointment, will therefore be eliminated.

Assuming that the municipalities have appointed 1% of their contractual agents – which is a low hypothesis – this would have represented an annual burden of no less than 170 million euros, from which the municipalities will escape thanks to Minister Bacquelaine and the government. Given the importance of this burden, it is also likely that the municipalities would simply have renounced the appointment of their contractual personnel. We really welcome this measure.

Finally, the third part of this reform concerns the reversal of part of the contribution of wage moderation. Mr. Daerden also emphasized this when he spoke of “flower”. This part of the reform is unanimous because the bill provides for a return to the Solidarity Pension Fund of the provincial administrations of the part of the salary moderation contribution on pensions, which is currently collected by the overall management on the treatments of local administrations employees. This is a fair return – Mr. Daerden, you are right – which is estimated at 121 million euros. It is nothing! Again, a significant amount is being contributed to support our local authorities.

This is a historic decision, as the federal state, for the first time, is directly involved in reducing the pension charges of local government officials.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, it is no less than 293 million euros that, each year, will come to support the local finances through the measures I just mentioned. In addition to this amount, more equity is brought between statutory and contractual employees.

I set up, in my municipality, this supplementary pension for appointed agents. I found it unfair that two officials who share a office, one statutory and another contractual, who throughout their career perform the same work, benefit from two completely different pensions.

You know that it is impossible to name everyone. This is why, for several years, in my municipality of Bièvre, I have put in place this complementary pension system, which allows to contribute 3%. But we can go beyond: it obviously depends on the political will. Some want it, others less. Thanks to this, ⁇ for the lowest wages, in some municipalities that have implemented this system, the pensions of contractual and statutory employees are the same. In terms of equality between workers, this seems to me the least of things. (The applause)

Mr. Daerden, it is not to do anything that would have been unacceptable. There would have been a break in the first place... (Brouhaha) Can I speak? I say that if the government had done nothing... No, I can’t speak. Okay, I am going away.

Continue on, Mr Clarinval!

Not doing anything would have been irresponsible. There would have been a break in the payment of pensions during this year and there would simply have been a lack of equity in the future pension system.

Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, you will not be surprised: our group will obviously support this reform with enthusiasm.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, with this bill, we continue to implement our government agreement by introducing the further construction of additional pensions in the public sector for contracts. The employee’s pension will start at the beginning and not after a five-year career. There is also the introduction of the famous mixed pension, in which the contractual years will count as years that were accumulated as an employee and the appointed years will count as official years. Contractual years will no longer automatically count for public pension.

I know there are mixed feelings about this, but it is undeniable that a contractual employee who does the same job as a permanent employee feels very unfairly treated. Furthermore, we note that there is a very strong trend to recruit much more contracts than permanent employees. We record this in the different governments, although the numbers vary there. For example, we find that in the Flemish Region 62 % is contractual, in the Waals Region 69 % and in the Brussels Region 61 %. Within the regions themselves, those percentages are lower. In Flanders it is 41%, 31% in Wallonia and 85% in Brussels. At the federal level, these numbers are much lower.

We also note that there is a great evolution within local governments. While in 1995 46% were still contractual, we note that in 2014 60% of the people recruited in local governments are contractual. It is therefore important to make a good arrangement for these contracts as well.

I think that in this way we also strengthen mobility. This mobility is necessary to be able to move from one workplace to another. The various statutes can be an obstacle. It also works to finance contributions for employed personnel.

For education, an exception will be made, more specifically for those recruited before 1 December 2017. Not October 9, 2014. We consider it important that not the date of the government agreement was taken, but the later date, with an additional pension associated with it.

For basic education, we would like to see a solution in this law, Mr. Minister. He did not come. It is provided for people in the basic education. Flemish Minister Crevits ensures that an effective budget has been released for the supplementary pension for the people of basic education who are not appointed today. The then minister was unable to do that. People who have been working in basic education for nine years will receive €1,770 annually based on those nine years of full-time equivalents.

This law establishes an additional pension for contractual staff members at the federal level. I think this is an important signal. We want to ensure a supplementary pension for everyone who is contractually appointed. We want to offer that on the basis of a contribution of 3% of the wage mass.

Flanders also followed, with a budget of 11 million euros. I think this is an important signal to the local authorities. Many of them have already started with an additional pension, but are ⁇ not yet on that contribution.

Some Flemish cities have a much higher contribution. However, this is not financially feasible for everyone, which is true, but I think it is important that we know that this should be possible. The municipalities should take responsibility for the contractual staff members.

I learned that today 15 % of the Flemish municipalities, 8 % of the Brussels municipalities and 6 % of the Wallish municipalities meet the conditions to receive a discount on the responsibilisation contribution. The municipalities have been given a two-year period to work with a step plan to meet these conditions.

Mr. Minister, you are indeed giving incentives to the municipalities to establish a step-by-step plan for a supplementary pension, starting at 2% of the wage mass. You do this by halving the responsibilisation contribution so that the rest of that amount can be used to build up the additional pension.

This responsibilisation contribution ensures that municipalities that do not work with a balanced ratio between statutory and contractual staff and who contribute to the Fund for this purpose receive a discount. This also means that the good pupils, who do not pay the responsibility contribution, pay for the other and that the municipalities, which according to our forecasts can not pay additional pension because they are financially difficult, also take charge of the financing. However, we find that a difficult point, just like the statutory staff members made available, which colleague Vercamer already mentioned during the discussion in the committee, who are employed in hospitals, among others. There you can no longer hire statutory staff members, but you are obliged to hire contractual staff members. Thus, one goes to a shredding of the responsibilization contribution, with which the institutions are seated without being able to do anything about it. This is and remains a major problem for us.

The regularization contribution, which was introduced but was not yet applied, is also abolished, while it was actually intended for the municipalities that recruited people a little late statutory and kept them a little longer as contractual staff members. According to some, this means removing the threshold to make a staff member statutory, but it also means fewer financial resources for the Solidarized Pension Fund for all municipalities.

It has already been mentioned that this pension fund still causes some concerns. Two measures were taken to feed the fund a little more and a little faster through the faster and monthly payment of the responsibility contribution and through the wage-matching contribution, which will ultimately be an incentive to feed the fund a little more.

We will support the present draft, Mr. Minister, but we still have a few points of attention. First, the financing of the pension fund tout court remains a concern for us. Second, how will you address the statutory staff members made available in the hospitals, possibly together with Minister De Block, to ensure that they do not enter the deep realm? As a result of the responsibilisation contribution, they will have to make a much higher contribution.

Also, the payment difficulties of municipalities that contribute to that solidarity fund but ultimately receive little return continue to cause us concern.

Following the merger of municipalities and OCMWs and the transfers of personnel that one wants to make between them, Flanders – but you have already said that – asks for a regulatory framework, so that this does not become an arithmetic model and one must pay with a peace of mind and without paying higher responsibilisation contributions that could carry out the merger.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, it took a while, but we now have the second reading behind us.

Furthermore, I ask again, Mr. Speaker, what the added value of a second reading is. I have said before that we would do a good job of using the services of the Chamber to examine what a second reading will ultimately bring. I have the impression that this often involves a delaying manoeuvre and that certain people want to obstruct to slow things down. The added value is extremely limited, as we hardly learn new things in a second reading.

Each time, we hope that the second reading will change the opinion of the minister and the government, but we are always disappointed.

So this is actually the purpose of the second reading: hoping that the government changes its minds. Then one can also plan a third, fourth, fifth, or even a thirty-one reading. Mr. Daerden, that will not change much in things.

In addition, there was the conflict of interests of your friends of the Cocof, the new parliament.

I didn’t want to interrupt you, but I do it because you go too far.

Let me take the example of the 6,000 euros taxed. This is proof that this second reading and the reactions of the field can lead to reflection. Sometimes it is possible to change your mind. Except to say that the House has become a place of interrogation of government decisions, which would be undemocratic, it seems that the debate keeps its reason to be on the background of the files.

You and your colleagues regularly talk about the conflict of interest as if it were flibust. I would like to remind you that we are fully in compliance with Article 143 of the Constitution. Unless the Open Vld no longer wants to work in this context, it must be admitted that when federated entities consider that they are injured, it is logical that the conflict of interest can be actioned. This is the case in this case.

Mrs Fonck, thank you for your legal explanation. A legal statement is always interesting to listen to; I am myself a lawyer.

However, colleagues, we should not ask legal, but substantive questions about the essence. Now, after the second reading and the conflict of interest, have we learned anything compared to the first reading? Have we heard new arguments during the second reading or during the discussion of the conflict of interest, which we had not heard in the first reading? I at least not. It was a recycling, a repetition, as often, without any new arguments being developed. I deeply regret that, because it all takes very long, but well, as they say to me, that is the price of democracy. Of course, they take away the rights they have. In any case, the opening of the second reading came at the request of the Green Group, but in my opinion that was absolutely not a good thing and the second reading has taught us very little.

Meanwhile, the procedures have been exhausted and we are now discussing the draft law on mixed pensions in the plenary session.

That bill remedies, first, an anomaly for officials in the pension system. Second, it creates an additional pension for contractual employees-officials.

First, the anomaly was that officials who had worked under contract for a period of time and were subsequently appointed by statutory authorities could have their contractual years counted as fixed years, allowing them to obtain a much better pension. Moreover, that scheme required certain – not all – administrations to quickly appoint the officials concerned at the end of a career of contractual officials, in order to improve their pensions. This is obviously bad, especially for the budgetary context. The regulation that is now in place makes that right.

This correction is done with the support of various trade unions. Mr. Minister, in Committee A you have obtained the consent of both the Christian trade union, which we have just addressed during the questioning hour, and the liberal trade union. In other words, for one time there was no unanimous trade union front, as two of the three trade unions pledged their support.

Honestly, I don’t understand how some can still defend that anomaly.

I admit that ministers, even your father, Mr. Daerden, tried for years to correct this anomaly and each time they were beaten on the front of conservatives, who didn’t want to know about it.

Mr. Minister, you are able to do that now. You succeed in streamlining retirement and removing the anomalies. That is a good thing. I think it is the evidence self. You have also received the support of the various associations of cities and municipalities, both from Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia, to implement that reform.

I would like to briefly address the purely Flemish problem of the centers for basic education, which I discussed in the first reading together with a number of Members of Parliament, including Mrs Becq. This, by the way, proves, Ms. Fonck, that the Parliament does not simply approve everything the government makes here.

We have asked for this attention. Colleagues, you may all have also received the emails from the employees who are active at those centers for basic education. Well, we answered that and asked the Minister how we could solve that problem.

This has not occurred in DudeMansors. The Minister stressed that he cannot solve this problem with the present bill, but that he would consult with the counties. He did indeed consult with the Flemish government and now a separate arrangement has been found with the Flemish government to provide the concerned with an additional pension. That is a good thing.

Ms. Fonck, you just said that Parliament has become a machine that approves everything the government says. This is not the case. Again, the adjustment took place in the first reading and not in the second or third. If it were up to you, we would have eighty lectures and we would probably never get anything approved, but that is probably your vision of a parliament.

Colleagues, the bill also includes a second part, which concerns the supplementary pensions for contractual officials. I find that in itself even more important than the correction of the anomaly, because this topic has also been discussed for decades.

I remember, among other things, the attempt of then Secretary of State Hendrik Bogaert. Collega Bogaert has repeatedly tried in good faith to introduce a system of supplementary pension for contractual officials. This has not succeeded, because every time they have clashed with the question of how to finance it.

How would we ensure that the municipalities themselves fund the additional pensions?

Well, the minister offers a solution by giving local authorities, the municipalities, an incentive to take action in that light.

You say the Minister provides an incentive. You agree with me: this is an incentive in a closed envelope. The fund is closed. Who pays for the incentive? the local authorities themselves. Do you have a different interpretation of budgeting?

Somebody has to pay the bill, that is obvious. Or we do it in the socialist way, with a blank check. (Protest by Mr Daerden

Insurance law exists. This is called bonus malus. Those who do well will be rewarded. Those who do worse pay the bill. That is what we do. We do this financially responsibly, with a closed envelope. Socialist mathematics assumes an open envelope, a blank check, no limit. Mr Daerden, you know a little English: there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone has to pay the bill. This is done with a closed envelope, giving the good students a little more rights.

The importance of supplementary pensions cannot be underestimated. If a local government or government contributes 6% annually to the supplementary pension, pensioners will receive a pension equivalent to 75% of their last salary.

Among other things, the colleagues of the sp.a advocate here for a pension that guarantees the comfort of people’s lives, which, by the way, is a very legitimate question. The question arises, however, is how it will be financed. Col. John Crombez wants to do so by topping up the highest pensions. Of course, when you make that calculation, you don’t touch it. If we let it depend on the pensions of parliamentarians, judges and a number of others, then we get a few tens of millions of euros, but no more than that.

A much better system to be able to pay a pension of 1 500 euros or more is to do what the government is doing, namely to introduce an additional pension system in which contributions are paid during the career, ideally at 6%, so that at the end of the ride the pension is 75% of the last salary. We can have a decent pension for everyone.

We do that here. I find, like Mrs. Becq, that a number of cities and municipalities, ⁇ in Flanders, are likely to have taken more responsibility and already provide for additional pensions.

I am a “cumulard”. This has become a slang word in politics, but it has the advantage of having some knowledge of matters. This applies to a number of colleagues who sit here, creepers or mayors. In my town, Kortrijk, we already give a supplementary pension. We do so for some of our employees with the VIA resources, as it is called in Flanders, in the amount of 3% of the salary. The ambition must be to guarantee 6% for everyone in the long run, so that the pensions of those people can be strong.

Mr. Minister, I would like to point out that there is another problem. Between the discussion of our bill and the vote, there were some developments in Flanders, which in the future will make a number of corrections necessary. Then I have the concrete on the Decree on the integration of the OCMW in the cities and on the mergers approved in Flanders and entered into force between now and now. There were seven or eight mergers in Flanders, resulting in all staff members being taken together. If we approve the present draft law unchanged and do not correct it, it may lead to paying more for the same officials. We will somehow have to provide social contributions in a system of globalization to counter this problem. The problem was addressed to you, among other things, by the VVSG and some other bodies and you have made clear in the committee that we should fix the problem with a law on various provisions.

Finally, colleagues, I cannot emphasize enough how important the supplementary pension is. We often discuss here in Parliament the statutory pension and the supplementary pension. The attention paid to the supplementary pension fits into a larger strategy of the government and the majority to strengthen the supplementary pension for other people as well. The supplementary pension was introduced when Frank Vandenbroucke was Minister of Pensions. By some he was liked, by others much less, not only in the opposition, but also in the majority. He was a visionary minister. The Supplementary Pensions Act was passed in the Parliament in 2003 by a government that had a different composition than the current government, honoring whoever deserves honor.

The Law on Supplementary Pensions will be supplemented on several points. We approved the system for the self-employed natural persons very recently, a few weeks ago, that they can also build a full-fledged second pillar. This reform offers prospects to 450 000 small self-employed and gives them the opportunity to save extra for their retirement, with a tax incentive.

Mr. Minister, we also look forward to the next reform, the individual free supplementary pension for employees. The government recently instructed you to bring that draft to Parliament as soon as possible and submit it to vote later this year.

Colleagues, in summary, I think it is a good design. I regret that it took so long to submit it to Parliament for voting. It has taken months to correct an anomaly from the past. It has taken months to give all contractual employees and officials what they owe, a fake supplementary pension.

We will approve the bill later with much affection and conviction.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, you know that my colleague, Ms. Temmerman, has followed this dossier with great attention in the Social Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, she cannot be present because of a death in the family. I would like to apologize to her at the beginning of this discussion.

Colleagues, as my group has repeatedly said, the big problem with this government’s pension policy is that pensioners are viewed as a cost item. No perspective is given to the people, and one after the other savings are carried out. Also with regard to the present draft, about the mixed pensions, one is sick in the same bed.

What is it about? As several colleagues have already stated, today the official pension is calculated not only on the basis of the services performed as a permanent official, but also on the basis of the services performed prior to the permanent appointment as a contractual employee. With this design this ends. For anyone who was permanently appointed after 1 December 2017, the contractual years will no longer count under the official system but under the employee regime.

Is this an illogical measure? At first sight not. It seems logical that years performed as a contractual employee or as an employee are taken into account for the employee pension and that the years performed as a permanent official are taken into account for the employee pension. However, there is a situation where two persons working on the same service and performing the same work will not be subject to the same pension calculation because one was permanently appointed before 1 December 2017 and the other after 1 December 2017.

In addition, there is especially a very big problem with the timing and entry into force of this law, and it is for the following reason. The Minister is aware that, as a result of the application of this law, the persons concerned will enjoy a lower statutory pension. Indeed, part of their careers will now be subject to a less advantageous calculation, in particular for employees rather than for public servants. For that loss, this bill includes an exchange, and immediately also a compensation, which is the supplementary pension for contractual officials. Unlike in the private sector, contractual employees at the government still do not have access to the supplementary pension.

However, the compensation provided for, namely the supplementary pension, has yet to be started. The loss of statutory pension is therefore immediately presented to the persons concerned, but the compensation has yet to be started.

The State Council was also sharp about the fact that an uncertain promise is held to the parties concerned, in order to compensate for a certain loss. I quote: “The mere possibility offered to establish a supplementary pension scheme for contractual employees, however, creates great uncertainty as to whether that scheme will actually exist and, provided that it will exist, what the material situation of the employees will be.”

Whether all contractual employees will accumulate a supplementary pension in the short term is therefore not entirely certain. For the staff for whom this is the case, it is anyway a fact that this pension increase in most cases still needs to be started, while the loss, by the other calculation of the statutory pension, becomes immediately effective.

Your government in this way again creates a lot of pension uncertainty and pension uncertainty. What is clearly known is that the supplementary pension will not work retroactively, while the loss of statutory pension in many people is exactly the same as the contractual career years accumulated in the past. Specifically, this means that a person who is appointed on a fixed basis the following month, after fifteen contractual years, falls under this law. The last fifteen years will then be calculated within the framework of an employee pension, but the person concerned has not yet been able to build up any additional pension to compensate for that loss.

The explanation to the law did not contain figures about that loss and therefore our faction created the simulation itself. What is shown from this? Someone with level D loses 273 euros per month. Someone with C and B levels loses about 300 euros per month. Someone with a level A loses as much as 479 euros per month.

Since the State Council had also accused that the explanation of the law did not contain numerical examples, you, Mr. Minister, were obliged to spread a simulation in the committee. This simulation proves exactly what I just said. After all, you only made simulations for those who started a career with the government on 1 January 2018. Therefore, you are silent about the 230 contractual officials that already exist today; 230 persons who, although they already have contractual years behind for which they have accumulated pensions, but who will not receive compensation through a supplementary pension.

Therefore, our group has submitted an amendment so that this law can only come into force for those who are at the beginning of their contractual career with the government. For example, the loss they suffer by the law can go parallel to the construction of a supplementary pension.

However, even for those with a full build-up of supplementary pension, the situation threatens to go badly, as also shows the simulation of the minister. During the discussion in the committee, the Minister explained that the Government has allocated a budget for the supplementary pension of 3 % for its contractual officials. He explained that the incentive for local authorities should lead to a pension plan of 3% as well, only from 2021. Thus, the target is 3% of supplementary pension. If we look at the 3% scenario in the minister’s simulation, then people still lose pensions compared to the current situation, namely from 34 euros of pension per month to even 162 euros of pension per month. That is black on white in the table you have distributed, Mr. Minister.

In short, it is presented pink-colored. One pretends that the loss that people suffer is compensated by the supplementary pension. However, the own figures show that in most cases this will not be the case, even for those who will build up an additional pension during their full contractual career. Moreover, you do not knowingly tell us that many, especially in the coming years, will not have accumulated any additional pension for their contractual performance at all, because its construction for most still needs to be started. Those people will lose much more.

Finally, a few words about the staff of the basic education. The draft we discuss today does not apply to educational staff. The staff of basic education has been promised for years that they would be treated in the same way as the teaching staff. With the present draft, this appears to be an empty promise. People are deceived. They do not fall under the exception for the education provided by the design, while they were always promised that. As a result, 1,400 employees will now have to pay less with an average of 200 euros in pensions. Before the discussion in the committee, each of you received the emails in which they massively pulled the alarm bell.

Together with Mr. Daerden, we therefore today again submit the amendment to also grant the staff members of the basic education the exception that will apply to education. During the committee discussion we found that the members of CD&V, of Open Vld and even you, Mr. Minister, have pledged for a solution for the staff of basic education. We were surprised when the amendment was not approved.

Mr. Minister, you promised a solution before the end of this year. However, those concerned have not been helped with new promises, ⁇ not since they have already received promises that have not been fulfilled since 2007. However, the real solution was simple: grant them the exception that applies to teaching staff. Therefore, today we re-submit our amendments and I call on everyone, including the members of the majority, to approve the amendment that gives the staff of basic education the certainty they are entitled to.

I go around. We will not approve the bill. The principle may seem logical and we support the construction of a supplementary pension for contractual officials. But by approving this draft and bringing the law into effect immediately while the supplementary pension has yet to be started, a lot of people are again withdrawn from their pensions. That is unacceptable for us, and it is ⁇ unacceptable for the staff of basic education, who have always been promised the opposite.

The starting points of this bill are well known. It is true that action had to be taken in the face of the negative spiral of increasingly late appointments of contractual employees in public service, the worsening of local public finances and the balance of the Solidarity Pension Fund. It is also known that there was a growing imbalance between the charges of the pensions of statutory officials and the contributions paid for these same statutory officials.

In this regard, we are in favor of the introduction of a mixed pension.

Mr. Minister, you had announced in June 2015 that you wanted to generalize the second pillar of pensions for local government officials. We agree on this point, provided it is generalized. The introduction of a mixed pension must be accompanied by a solid supplementary pension.

But, in the bottom, you haven’t generalized a second pillar of pension for local government agents and that’s why several points in your bill are problematic for us. The first is that the impact of the formula you have chosen for the agents involved is questionable. You decide on an immediate and rapid entry into force of the mixed pension for contractual agents in office, except for those who were appointed before 1 December 2017. At the same time, there are contractual agents who are sometimes very far from their retirement and will potentially benefit from a second pillar.

On the contrary, others are potentially much closer to their retirement date. You know as well as I and for those, a second pillar eventually introduced by the municipality or by another level of local power would obviously have an impact that would be anecdotal on their pension. This is a first point that I want to highlight.

It is true that you have provided an exemption scheme for temporary teaching staff. This point has been discussed with the Ministers of Education and a solution has been found. This is a positive point. It is, on the other hand, regrettable that a solution could not be found for a staff who is in the same type of situation as the temporary teaching staff and who, however, will not be able to benefit from it. I think in particular of the non-market sector staff such as APE or PTP staff.

The second point that makes us trouble in your bill is the way you put in place this second pillar which, I repeat, is not a generalized second pillar. We would clearly have been in favour if it had been a widespread second pillar. You have therefore decided to introduce it for contractual agents who are already in service. In this regard, you have repeatedly invoked the Pension Reform Commission. The latter advocated the introduction of a first pillar – no matter how it is called – in any case supplementing the first pillar with a capitalization for newly hired contractual agents and in a model with a mandatory capitalization principle. Here too, it is still a completely different model from the choice you have made here, at the government level.

The third point that we are concerned with is the so-called financial incentive – which is rather a lesser penalty – that you apply to local public employers to encourage them to set up a complementary pension scheme.

This is, for us, the summit of the summit since you decide not to reward those who intend to provide efforts and who have already been extremely correct, those who have not abused a form of pension engineering consisting in naming as late as possible those who have essentially had a contractual career to benefit from a public service pension. You decide to reward those who have made the most use of this form of pension engineering and who will benefit from this form of incentive.

On the contrary, those who have shown themselves to be the most responsible and who have not abused this pension engineering system, will not benefit – if they have already set up a second pillar – from this incentive scheme.

While, for a number of them, they will potentially increase their second-pillar diet because it is obviously quite possible to increase the contribution, and I think I know that a number of them will do so. It is regrettable that these persons cannot also benefit from this incentive and support to establish or simply strengthen a second pillar for their contractual employees.

The choice of the government is paradoxical and really poses a problem. It also raises the question of the effectiveness of the system you have chosen. At least, the actual return produced by the theoretical envelope is, at this stage, purely hypothetical in view of what the communes and agents concerned experience.

Finally, another aspect of your project concerns us, both for personal agents and for the relevant local authorities. Of course, the reality is extremely varied. This is quite accurate. However, we could have had simulations of cases, although theoretical, but which could have been modulated. Without even considering the multitude of situations, correct simulations could have been organized.

As I said, we are in favour of the introduction of a mixed pension in such cases, but the model we advocate differs from yours. We would have wanted to propose a mixed pension generalizing the supplementary pension to all the employees concerned. The aim would have been to avoid major disadvantages, caused by the system you chose and which relies on an insufficient incentive. In addition, it will favor those who have most resorted to engineering in terms of retirement. We believe that your choice in favour of such a model is unfair.

We presented some amendments today, although, in order to be able to propose our model, you had to profoundly change your bill. It was not possible to do this through a series of amendments. For all these reasons, we will vote against this bill.

Mrs. Fonck, I have listened carefully to you. You say you would have made a different choice, a generalized system of additional pension for all those local officials, provincial and municipal. This is an alternative, that is true. But can you tell me how you would finance it?

What are the alternatives you have tried to propose? What have you done? and communicating vessels. This system allows to be "more generous" for those who have made the most appeal to engineering in terms of retirement. I put on wickets because the incentive has its limits; the envelope is not huge. The first part.

The second aspect is that in practice, you send the hot potato back to the local authorities, without even having taken, at a given time, the effort to gather all the stakeholders around the table to see which model you could eventually build through co-financing between the different parties.

I would like to refer you to the Pension Reform Commission which had actually worked on a model allowing the generalization of a second complementary pillar in this mixed pension framework and which had advanced financing assumptions.

Ms. Fonck, you say a lot, but at the same time you actually say nothing. You answer completely next to the question. I have asked how you will finance it, but you do not answer it. This is also typical. We are constantly getting alternatives from the opposition here, but if the invoice has to be paid, they don’t give home. That is precisely the difficulty. I have also been responsible for pensions. Pension is a subject for which one can promise a lot, but at the end of the ride the invoice must be paid.

The system proposed by this minister is a system that is financiable and that simultaneously encourages cities and municipalities to build or strengthen a supplementary pension.

I also did the exercise for our city. We have already implemented such a system. We have already been responsible. Honestly speaking, we have the trick with the contracts that at the end of their career statutaries are never applied. My predecessors, of a different political colour, have not done that either. The number of statutory officers in my city is less than 20%. Within ten years we will no longer have any statutory officials at the decretal degrees. I just want to point out which direction we are going.

The system now proposed gives cities and municipalities an incentive to provide additional pensions for contractual officials. I think this is good and ambitious. It is going in the right direction. Your alternative proposal of a full supplementary pension, generalized and mandatory, sounds good, but you do not answer the question of how you will finance it. This also clearly indicates that your ambitions are not funded and supported. Therefore, I do not consider it to be an alternative.

We can talk for a long time. Mr. Van Quickenborne, what you say is incredible! You declare that this bill proposes a model that is a financial incentive for all local authorities wishing to implement a second pillar and for those wishing to strengthen their second pillar. But that is not what you do. The bill does not contain aid applicable to all public employers; it simply provides for a reduction in the accountability contribution paid by some local public employers. by which? By those who, in the end, most abused the late appointment system and among whom the imbalance between public servants' contributions and pensions is the most marked.

However, the model makes sense to me. It is interesting if it comes to providing financial aid applicable to all public employers who invest in complementary pensions, including those who already have a second pillar for their staff but who would like to strengthen it by increasing contributions. However, this is not what this bill provides.

You constantly present this model by explaining what it does not contain. This is not acceptable!

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, we are in favour of the installation of a mixed pension in the local authorities but we cannot adhere to the way you plan to do it.

The system must be reformed. The practice of late appointments in order to receive a better pension was not financially sustainable for local authorities. The mixed pension allows to combine an employee pension corresponding to the years performed as an employee with an employee pension for the years performed as an employee. This obviously implies a decrease in the overall statutory pension compared to the current system but, if this decrease is offset by introducing a supplementary pension, this could be acceptable. However, in practice, there is a big difference between the pension of contractual employees and that of statutory employees. This difference is on average more or less 1,100 euros per month, which corresponds to 13,200 euros per year. Depending on life expectancy, this represents an average amount of approximately 264,000 euros per agent. Not taking into account this difference would be unfair since these people often do the same work within local authorities.

The government agreement wanted to be reassuring in this regard since it advocated a sufficient level of contribution. The ORPSS, which has since merged with the ONSS, estimated that to fill the difference between the pension of a statutory employee and that of a contractual agent, a contribution of 6% of the overall wage mass would be required.

Although you mentioned a target of 6% in the developments of your bill, you only provide an incentive for a contribution of 2% of the salary by 2020 and 3% by 2021. You do not guarantee a neutral operation for contractual agents, quite the opposite. No provision provides for a backservice to correct the fact that the previous years, as contractual, before the introduction of the supplementary pension, will not give the right to any pension supplement.

Furthermore, the incentive chosen to encourage local authorities to establish a supplementary pension for contractual agents poses several problems. Curiously, you opted for a reduction in the accountability contribution. This contribution would be reduced by the equivalent of half of the cost of establishing the second pillar. It is not logical to link the establishment of an advantage for employees to a reduction in contributions for civil servants. Of course, this prevents the federal government from paying out fresh money, but this is done at the expense of local authorities.

We share the fear of the latter for three reasons. We are concerned about the near-deficit situation of the Solidarity Pension Fund. The situation would be such that it should be considered to increase the basic contribution or accountability contribution in order to be able to meet the commitments. Note that the accountability contribution has already been significantly increased. It grew from 153 million in 2012 to 335 million in 2016. Proposing to reduce it to encourage local authorities to establish a second pillar for their employees is likely to worsen the situation of the Solidarity Pension Fund.

In addition, the financial intervention promised by the federal state to the Fund, namely 100 to 121 million from the salary moderation, will be fixed by royal decree. Under these conditions, there is therefore no guarantee of having all the means concerned.

Moreover, this incentive dismisses a majority of local authorities. The accountability contribution is due only by local authorities whose contribution to the Federal Fund is lower than the pension burden of their former statutory workers. It would be 39% in this case. This means that 61% of local authorities do not pay a liability contribution and are therefore excluded from the benefit of the incentive.

Another problem is the lack of simulation. The chosen incentive creates discrimination between local authorities and, in particular, between Flanders, on the one hand, and Wallonia and Brussels, on the other.

The basic situation is very different between the regions. In Flanders, a sectoral agreement was concluded at the end of 2009 with a view to introducing a supplementary pension in favour of contractual employees, so that almost all Flemish municipalities have already done so. In Wallonia and Brussels, there is no sectoral agreement. Approximately 25 municipalities and CPAS have established a second pillar in Wallonia and only one municipality and a CPAS have established one in Brussels. You give them until 1 January 2020 to align with the Flemish municipalities. This is a very compelling deadline.

You have planned a closed envelope of 16 million euros for this incentive but it is not well known how this envelope will be distributed, which is also not of nature to reassure the local authorities, especially when we read in the press that ⁇ 13 million will already go of office to Flanders, of which almost 8 to Antwerp.

It is easy to argue in a committee that the claims that this incentive would be unfavorable to the local authorities of Wallonia and Brussels are incorrect, since they are based on the current situation and not on the one that will prevail on the date when the municipalities must have put in place their pension plan. At least you could have provided simulations. Despite several requests, you have not provided sufficient concrete elements of analysis in particular regarding the financial impact that the bill will have on local authorities.

Finally, we found a number of negative opinions about your project and especially the fact that you didn’t take into account it. Starting with the State Council opinion that is very critical, including on the question of whether your project respects competence distribution. The answer is different depending on whether they are members of staff of government services, legal or public law persons, teaching or subordinate powers.

I will not go into detail here, but I would like to give an example: according to the Council of State, the Communities and Regions are not competent to provide for rules concerning pensions of their staff members, whether they are definitive, temporary or auxiliary.

Furthermore, according to the State Council, the federal government cannot take provisions which would have as a consequence that "the conditions for granting and calculating the pension would no longer follow, for the staff of the Communities and Regions, the same rules as those applicable to the staff of the State".

This does not seem to disturb the majority, but one can imagine the conflicts that this project is likely to generate. We also point out the few cases that you have made of the unanimously negative opinion of the ORPSS and that of the Union of Cities and Municipalities. The three associations of Brussels, Wallonia and Flemish have expressed their opposition to your project.

They criticize the proposed incentive, because it constitutes only a redistribution of burdens and “local authorities already enjoying some solidarity from other local authorities – despite the accountability contribution, they contribute less to the financing of the system than to the costs they incur – would still receive a bonus, while those who contribute to solidarity receive no incentive.”

The three associations should have been your preferred partners in the search for a balanced solution. They have also formulated alternatives, such as a reduction in the overall pension invoice (basic contribution and accountability contribution) or a reduction in the accountability invoice by a lower percentage, and have a broader adjustment period.

Finally, by a motion relating to a conflict of interests, the Assembly of the French Community Commission declared that its interests are seriously harmed by your bill and requested consultation. This was held on 24 January last year and could not lead to a solution because the majority proved inflexible.

For all these reasons, Mr. Minister, we will not vote on this bill. We will vote against.

Mr. Speaker, my comrade Raoul Hedebouw has spoken in a committee on this project and I am speaking in the plenary, in my capacity as a representative of the people, but also as a former....

Yes, but there are the representatives of the people and there are the representatives of the big capital on the right side.

Representatives of the people! Stop judging others!

Go ahead, Mr Van Hees!

I speak as a representative of the people, but also as a former trade union delegate of the Public Service. As such, I can say that the coexistence of appointed and unnominated staff is a serious problem. And the project that is presented to us today will further accentuate the problem, as it ultimately introduces a double punishment. In fact, a contractor is already deprived of certain rights during his or her career and if he or she is appointed in the course of his or her career, he or she will also be deprived of part of his or her pension when retired.

The fundamental question that goes through all this debate is whether the harmonisation of our pension schemes should be revised up or down. To do this, let’s compare the situation of Belgium to that of neighbouring countries!

Belgian public pensions are below the European average. Private pensions in Belgium are among the lowest in Europe. The government’s direction is a downward harmonisation, so that Belgian public pensions are also among the lowest in Europe.

This is called leveling from the bottom. One might say, “Pensioners of the private, you are poor but comfort yourself, soon the pensioners of the public will be as poor as you!”

This project aims, I cite the text, “to end an administrative jurisprudence that consists, under certain conditions, in taking into account services rendered as contractual with a public employer, in the calculation of a pension for the public sector. Insofar as these services are followed by a definitive appointment, these services will now be included in the pension scheme for salaried workers.” The objective is clear. It is displayed and acknowledged: it is to reduce the amount of the pension of the people who enter online account. The PTB, on the contrary, advocates the maintenance of what allowed people with mixed careers to benefit from upward harmonisation.

This project also creates a difference in treatment, as noted by the Council of State, which warned against the inequality of treatment introduced between appointed agents with the same past of service at the end of their career, depending on whether or not those years have been performed, in part, as members of the contractual staff. For example, an agent who has been appointed at the age of 50 will receive a lower pension of 200 euros than that of his colleague appointed at the age of 40. This is only for a ten-year difference! Imagine that for a larger difference, the loss can be two or three times higher.

The project also aims to encourage municipalities to organize a second pillar. I prefer the expression "privatization of pensions" than the second pillar expression which is an euphemism. Your project wants to reward financially the municipalities that have already done so. There is also a difference in treatment. Some contractors will receive a supplementary pension, others will not.

In addition, municipalities with a second pillar will be encouraged by reducing their contribution to the Solidarity Pension Fund of provincial and local administrations. This reduction in incomes will have to be compensated by the poorest municipalities, which are unable to establish a second pillar. As a result, they will have to pay more, while the richest will benefit from reduced financial burdens. Whoever is poor will be punished, whoever is richer will be rewarded. That’s a little bit of the government’s manufacturing mark.

Finally, in this new system, funding from the Fund will decrease as local authorities organize the second pillar. In addition, the municipalities will only have to assume the financial burden of the pensions of their staff members. This model is not sustainable in the long run. A second pillar is bad for solidarity, because one is forced to save within a municipality, and not from a Solidarity Fund.

With this project, the government is launching – it must be remembered – another attack on pensions in general and on public pensions in particular, which are especially targeted by this government. Remember the measures against the bonus-pension, against the bonus for graduation or even against the many! The objective is clearly to reduce the amount of the public pension. The government has chosen to make considerable savings at the expense of pensioners, while it does not take any initiative to fight tax fraud organized by and for the most native. We also heard recently, during the time question, the prime minister take the defence of a wealthy fraudster and justify his remaining within the Strategic Committee for the National Investment Pact.

If all these measures are combined, the public pension will decrease by hundreds of euros per month. In order to earn less, public sector workers will have to work longer. What a beautiful society you are building here!

As is the case every time you take up pensions, you obviously invoke the phenomenon of ageing. According to the Commission on the Study of Aging, in 2060 we will pay the same level of pension in percentage of GDP as Austria or France. Pensions are therefore perfectly fundable, but this involves other tax and social choices. A redistribution of wealth, as proposed by the Pension Reform Commission, makes it possible to keep public pensions at their current levels as well as to increase the low pensions of employees and small self-employed so that we are no longer the poor parent of Europe in this area.

Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, I did not refer to the exposition of the technical details concerning the impact of this bill. My colleague Daerden did this remarkably at the beginning of the debate. It is important to note that, as too often, this government changes the rules of the game in the course of the game. I am not against the pension reform. I am looking forward to the list of hard jobs. But on the bottom, I agree.

However, changing the principle of calculating career pension will harm many workers and employees of local authorities, including many women. I insist on this point. They are not responsible for the fact that they have not been named for many years, in cities and municipalities, despite local negotiations.

Mr. Minister, it would have been more appropriate to create extinction frameworks with backup clauses for started careers. Therefore, I will not vote in favour of your bill.

Mr. Speaker, this bill has two objectives: to guarantee the longer-term financing of pensions granted to local statutory officials, and to encourage public sector employers to offer a second pillar to their contractual staff.

The bill provides for the introduction of a mixed pension that has been requested for many years by the various associations of cities and municipalities to combat the practice of late appointments that significantly increase the local pension burdens.

The practice of late appointments has worsened over the past few years. The average age of appointments by local authorities continues to rise.

Mr Daerden, I personally voted for the pension reform of the local authorities of 24 October 2011.

When the then minister proposed this pension reform, we voted for it because we found it useful. The municipalities should be held accountable. The mind was the same. But the Minister of Pensions at the time knew properly that it would not be enough. So that its 2011 law stipulated that from 1 January 2017, a new contribution beyond the accountability contribution - a regularization contribution - should be instituted. This is actually what happens. Today, we see that if we do not fundamentally reform the system, we go into the wall! To such an extent that all forecasts on contributions, without reform, are catastrophic for the municipalities.

I have heard several people, who are obviously not aware of the system, say that this reform would significantly increase the cost for municipalities. and no! With the current law, without reform, this will happen. The Federal Pension Service’s forecasts are clear in this regard. If the law is not amended, the basic contribution will be increased from 41.5% to 47%; in matters of accountability, it will be increased from 50% to 95%. The reform just allows to significantly curb this evolution and, therefore, to ease the future burden for the municipalities. Things should not be reversed.

The importance of the reform is obvious. We can more or less agree on the terms. A Nobel Prize laureate said that if you want to prevent a project from progressing, you just need to demand that it be perfect. It is known. But this is not the way we should work, in my opinion. On the contrary, it is necessary to try to improve and, if possible, to participate in progress. This is what we are doing today.

I would like to remind you once again that if we applied the regularization contribution, it would be a new and very heavy burden for the municipalities. And the only way to avoid it is by not naming anymore because the nomination would cost a lot too much. I am not necessarily against. The trend is to contractualization, we know. If one continues this upward line that shows the increase in contracts in the municipalities and the CPAS, at some point there is no appointment at all. This is the result: no nomination at all!

It should not be said that this project will harm the contractors because, in fact, the contractors would no longer be named. Some municipalities have been pioneers in this area. Like the municipality of the former minister of pensions in years, for example, in which 95% of the staff are contractual and 5% statutory. There have been no nominations for 20 years. Many socialist communes in the Liegeois region have not been named for twenty years!

Do not come and say that, all of a sudden, we would prevent you from naming, or that contractors would probably be named! It is false! By offering a second pillar to contractors, it is their pension that is increased. And you make us believe that we want to diminish it while you know that you could no longer name them.

This is a fraud on the intellectual level, a fraud of reasoning. We need to return to a certain reality.

I would also like to answer the argument that is to say that a transfer would be made from the Wallon communes to the Flemish communes. These are balivernes!

It is true that 73% of local authorities in Flanders benefit from a second pillar, but today only 15% of local authorities in Flanders meet the conditions of the incentive. Between these two percentages, there is a difference. Why Why ? Because most and ⁇ all current pension plans are less than at least 2%. In addition, many municipalities are not accountable in the Flemish local authorities today; the latter could not benefit from the incentive since it would have to be deducted from a accountability contribution that does not exist.

You have to stop telling anything. I ask you a minimum of seriousness when looking at a reform of this magnitude. Thus, we can maintain reasoning that is based on completely false postulates. I think there must be a minimum of intellectual honesty when intervening on this subject.

I also remind, and this is important, that for the first time in thirty years, the federal will intervene in the financing of pensions of local authorities. This will not be done for any amount. It was said that the accountability contribution corresponds to now 335 million. The federal government will intervene for more than one-third of all accountability contributions. This is 121 million.

Mr. Daerden tells us that this is a fair return and that it is normal that this goes back to the Regions. If this is really normal, I wonder what the ten socialist ministers who have succeeded to head the Ministry of Pensions since 1985 have done.

The reality is that we are making an extremely significant contribution to the financing of local pensions, which has never been done in the previous thirty years.

This is a first. I think it is important to emphasize this and I dare hope that everyone will welcome it because it will actually help the local authorities a lot in this context.

I am a supporter of the generalization of complementary pensions, Ms. Fonck. Not by stupid and stupid opposition to the legal pension, this is not the case. Those who oppose the statutory pension to the complementary pension are completely mistaken in the debate. On the contrary, when we speak of “complementary” pensions, it means that they are complementary. For what ? The legal pension. This is the only reasonable way, today, to actually gradually increase the replacement rate of pensions in our country. They need to be generalized.

This is what we have done with independent individuals. This will also be done later with employees who are not currently entitled to the supplementary pension – 30% of them are still in this case. And that’s what we do today with public service contracts.

This is why two of the three trade unions approved this project in Committee A. It is not by chance! They know that this is an improvement in the status and future pension of contractual workers; that is the reality. CSC-ACV and the Liberal Trade Union approved this project in Committee A because they know that in the long run, it will increase the pension of contractors and reduce the injustice that currently exists between contractors and officials who sometimes do exactly the same job in, sometimes, the same offices.

This injustice must be taken into account and reduced. This is what we are doing today and I would like to thank those who support this project because they take responsibility. Because it is true that a reform is always questionable. We could also do nothing, but I think that would be dramatic for the municipalities.

I hear the comments regarding the incentive proposed, but what is the purpose? It is no longer useful at some point. By essence, the incentive is for me transitory. On the day that everyone will have a second pillar with minimum rates of 2 or 3 percent in 2020-2021, there will be no need for incentives.

We work in a closed volume and from the moment that everyone enters the system of supplementary pension for their contractual employees, there is no need for incentives. The incentive bears its name: it is made to stimulate and ensure that everyone enters the second pillar system for public service contractors who, in my opinion, have the right, deserve it and should be taken into account.

Mr Minister, I thank you. We disagree with all of your responses.

I will return on a few points. First, we are talking about balivernes when we are talking about a transfer between Wallon, Brussels and Flemish communes. I hear only one argument about this, that is to say that there are only 15% who meet the criteria and not 70% because they are below 2% and that they have already made an effort and because some are not accountable. You do not question the principle we criticize, you say that the amount we advance is not fair. A shift, a transfer, there is one! You say it will only be 15% of the municipalities. 15% of the Flemish municipalities is still a lot!

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There is no incentive, but they have already funded a 2 percent second pillar. And there are 60% who already finance a second pillar between 0 and 2%. This means that there are sums that are already devoted without the incentive being there. They will have an impact because they will have a reduction on their invoice.

This is what we say: as it is a common pot, there is a slide. What you have advanced may question the amounts ⁇ by the Federal Pension Service at a time T. But even if it’s not exactly that amount, the principle exists and could have been avoided without this aubaine effect. The first element.

Second element: this is the first time in 30 years that the federal will fund the solidarity fund. I think the expression is not good. It is true that this is the first time in 30 years, I also emphasized at the beginning, that the contributions taken from the wage mass of the nominees will fall into the pot allowing to pay the pensions of the nominees. That is, in fact. For the first time, it will fall into the right pot. But it cannot be said that the federal is generous and funds the nominees. These are two different things. I acknowledge that this is the first time, but it should not be said that this is an alternative funding by the federal pension of the appointed local authorities.

Third element: you say that the 2001 law was useful. I am glad to hear you say it. I know you supported it at the time, but it is even better to say it in plenary. I emphasize this element. I had not closely followed the debates and the drawing up of the law, but I think in fact that the minister at the time feared that this would not be sufficient and definitive. That’s why I recently called this a “transitional solution.” It is true that the legislator of the time believed that with the regularization contribution, local authorities would adopt a wise attitude, with more appointments. This has not been done.

As I said in my speech, this must be observed. Therefore, a solution was needed. Without a solution, it was a disaster.

You talked about the evolution of rates, 41-47, 50-95 and the fact that your system will significantly slow this evolution. It is estimated to be EUR 121 million. We just talked about it. In addition, there is the modification of the payment, anticipating and monthlyizing it, etc. This is actually to be paid by the municipalities and to weigh their budget.

Then there is your mixed pension system that will ease the system. Here are the figures you cited in the commission: 3 million euros of impact in 2019, 5 million in 2020 and 7 million in 2021. It is not these 7 million that will significantly curtail rates. Either the rates were overvalued, or they will not change significantly thanks to your 7 million in 2021. I believe that the element you are advancing does not correspond at all to the reality.

Finally, you talk about the generalization of the second pillar and your affection for it. We are not against a second pillar. We are not ideologically opposed to the second pillar. We believe that contractors deserve a second pillar and a higher pension. It is our daily struggle to increase each other’s pensions. Simply put, the second pillar is useful and interesting if it meets criteria of social fairness, generalization, if it ensures real yield, that is, if it is effective – this is not always the case, especially given the costs collected and the rates currently in force – and, finally, if it is not at the expense of the first pillar. It is not necessary to reduce the first pillar to feed the second. In this case, this is the case.

So here is a whole series of elements that we contest.