Brussels, 26/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - During the EU Council in Luxembourg on Thursday 21 June (see EUROPE 10639), employment and social policy ministers approved the main points of the report on the adequacy of pensions 2010-2050.
The report does not provide any avenues for reconciling sustainability with adequacy of national pension systems, especially since, given the diversity of those systems, “there is no single set of responses that fits all”. There are multiple challenges to be overcome - but if there is one that should represent the inscrutable task of achieving “sustainable” pension systems, it is that of compensating for the fall in replacement rates to make pensions “adequate”. Member states come up with different answers to this: - later retirement, discouragement of early retirement, promotion of complementary retirement schemes and bigger contributions. Although the sustainability of such systems is a technical question, their adequacy is more difficult to calculate, says the social protection committee which drafted the report. One retired person out of five within the EU is on the verge of poverty. The committee has set itself the challenge of including the differences between men and women for the payment of pensions, and the introduction of a measure for pensioners to have access to additional resources. (JK/transl.jl)