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  • CÉSAR URRUTIA

    @cesarurrutiasj

    Madrid

Updated Wednesday, 3November2021-22: 45

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Minister José Luis Escrivá is a difficult interlocutor to negotiate. The unions and businessmen know this, who over the last year and a half have discussed with him the successive extensions of the ERTEs, even leading to the extraordinary convocation of Councils of Ministers at the limit of time limits for not having reached an agreement earlier. . Now,

two weeks after the deadline to agree on a system that guarantees the sustainability of the

pension

system

with the imminent retirement of the baby boomers, the same thing happens.

In the next three decades, the more than 13 million Spaniards born between 1958 and 1977 will retire, which requires reforms that guarantee the sustainability of the system. Escrivá has put on the table of the pension reform the draft of an amendment that will be processed as of next November 15, with or without the support of unions and employers. "It is a measure that is contingent and that does not cut pensions," summarizes Social Security, denying that there is little time to negotiate and assuring that they are willing to listen to all kinds of proposals, "as always."

The employers' association of small and medium-sized companies,

Cepyme, asked for prudence and warned that a new rise in prices

"will not only affect the recovery and the creation of employment, contributing more uncertainty, but will also mean higher costs for companies, weighing down their ability to compete ".

What the employers understand is that Social Security proposes that

the guarantee of the pension system for the

baby boom

generation

rests in the future on the social contributions

that are part of the workers' payrolls. Not only that, but they take for granted that the 0.5% finalist that would be added to the payroll from 2023 along with other concepts such as unemployment or common contingencies is

a clearly insufficient amount

to meet the objective set, which is to fill the emptied pension reserve fund to guarantee future pensions.

And they are right. An estimate prepared by the research group, Pensions and Social Protection, made up of researchers from the

University of Extremadura and Valencia

of the resources that Escrivá's proposal would collect with its contingent rise in contributions, results in 17,000 million euros in a decade. "In 2020, the contribution bases for common contingencies for the entire year amounted to 333,320 million. 0.5% represents 1,667 million of extra contribution, which, in turn, represents 0.15 points of GDP in 2020", explains

Enrique Devesa, professor of Financial and Actuarial Economics.

Those 17,000 million euros with which the pension reserve fund would be endowed after 10 years is nowhere near the objectives set by the sustainability factor repealed last summer.

The scales and challenges of the Spanish pension system are much greater

. To get an idea, after a decade Escrivá's proposal would not collect enough to pay the pension payroll that will be paid on November 25 and that will exceed 20,000 million euros for including two payrolls, the ordinary and the extraordinary Christmas.

The repealed sustainability factor was applied to retiree pensions with a growing effect, more harshly at the end of their expected life, in 2050. By then, the estimate is that it would

cut spending by 11,000 million euros per year,

seven times what Social Security has proposed until 2032.

Escrivá did not provide social agents with more documentation last Tuesday than the draft of the amendment that he will present to Congress.

And even without data, the businessmen see that the proposal gives

a kick to follow the adjustments in the system,

actually enclosing a new round of increases.

For the unions, however, the measure goes in the right direction.

The leader of CCOO, Unai Sordo

, admitted yesterday that the proposal generates some "uncertainty" but that it is "interesting since it makes this equity index move away from the sustainability factor." "It acts on income, to ensure that the increase in pensions is covered through the increase in income."

Starting in 2032, in the midst of the

baby boomers'

retirement escalation

and triennially, it will be verified whether the level of pension spending foreseen in 2050 by the European Commission is in line with the financial health of the system.

If it is, the pension box could help lower contributions or improve pensions.

But if it is not and the reserve fund is not enough,

Social Security proposes to refinance the system with a reduction in spending on pensions and a new increase in the contribution rate

with a ceiling of 0.4% of GDP, almost three times the current ascent.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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