Brussels, 19/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - By adopting a working paper on Wednesday on flexibility in taking up pensions, the European Commission proposes a series of paths for reflection to modernise the current system. According to one of its spokespersons, it is a question of allowing for a "rotation, greater dynamism of our staff, one of the greatest problems being the fact that the early-retirement system does not work". The statutory provisions on which the pension scheme works date back over thirty years and must be reviewed to take account of three major problems: - adaptations are necessary following the Community decisions regarding the free movement of workers and the protection of migrant workers; - the current rules excessively penalise early-retirement; - the institution lacks flexibility to organise early-departures.
The Commission stipulates that there are two financial brakes to retirement: the actuarial reduction of the level of pensions and the abolition of family allowances. The goal therefore consists in finding a way of reducing these obstacles to improve the scheme's attractiveness, while not risking placing back into question the long-term balance of the pension scheme. Thus, the Commission proposes amending the statute to retain family allowance payments to those taking early-retirement, and review the coefficients of actuarial reductions. Under certain conditions, it also proposes allowing certain officials, leaving before the age of retirement (60, 65 maximum), to begin new careers outside European institutions, have a departure capital and to convert rights gained in the pension scheme.
Improving the unemployment fund scheme of temporary agents
To remedy the current problems of the deficit in the unemployment fund for temporary agents, the Commission proposes a series of measures to make the system more rational and rigorous. It thus suggests an increase in the ceilings of unemployment allocations which has not been reviewed since 1996, removing the ceiling on unemployment benefits for an initial 6-month period to take account of certain difficulties encountered by the unemployed (the ceiling can mean a steep and at times brutal reduction in incomes), and to limit the duration of the compensation to a third of the period of activity. Whereas appointed officials have stable jobs and other Community agents depend on the national unemployment scheme (auxiliary agents), temporary agents have none of these faculties. For that reason, the Council decided in 1985 to set up an unemployment scheme for them, managed by the Commission.