PENSIONS : MEPS SEE NEED FOR INCLUSIVE REFORMS.

Members of the European Parliament wish to see gender and social exclusion issues taken further into account in the reflection process launched by the European Commission on the future of pensions. They also make an increase in retirement age conditional on prior discussions with the social partners and other relevant organisations as well as a comprehensive evaluation. This is the compromise reached by the different political groups, on 1 February, in the EP Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL). It took 53 compromise amendments, which brought to light "different sensibilities, depending on country and political group," commented Frederic Daerden (S&D, Belgium), who explained that all sides made concessions.

The committee, asked to examine the Commission's green paper on adequate, sustainable and safe pension schemes, noted the extreme difficulty of determining an adequate pension income at European level given the diversity of schemes in force. The Commission, on the other hand, can give guidance to member states on establishing criteria for a minimum pension. It can also facilitate understanding of the 27 national systems by proposing a typology of pension schemes in the member states and a set of common definitions in order to make systems comparable. The EU should also remove obstacles to mobility and allow pension portability within and between member states. The committee proposed, for example, that pension schemes should not require long contribution periods to validate entitlement.

MEASURING IMPACT OF REFORMS

The committee is concerned about the consequences of future reforms on the most vulnerable and urged member states to boost their effort to eradicate inequalities between men and women. This could be done, for instance, through the inclusion of maternity leave periods and support for older family members for pension entitlement. MEPs stressed that...

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