The Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, has reached an agreement with Brussels and with his partners from United We Can in the Government for the reform of pensions, one of the hot spots of the current legislature. Sources of the negotiations have advanced to various media outlets that the European Executive has accepted the latest proposal from the Sánchez Cabinet on the computation period (the years of contribution that are used to calculate the amount of the pension): that the current 25 years with another 29 that excludes the two worst exercises.
Social Security would automatically apply the system that is most beneficial for the retiree, who in any case could always choose. This is the proposal that the Government is going to present this morning to the social agents, unions and employers, whom it urgently summoned yesterday, in a meeting at the Ministry of Social Security
The minister showed this newspaper his usual optimism yesterday when he hoped to get a yes from the social dialogue “in the coming days.” He even went further: he expects it to happen today with the previously explained proposal.
Escrivá has finally achieved the internal support of Unidas Podemos as a partner of the coalition Executive and now seeks the support of its parliamentary allies (ERC, EH-Bildu and PNV), with a view to the corresponding decree.
The main purpose of the pension reform is to increase income to face the challenge of aging, one of the milestones committed to the European Union to access the fourth disbursement of Next Generation funds, linked to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. The fundamental tool to achieve this increase is the increase in the maximum contribution bases (from 4,495 euros per month in 2023).
Impact
The truth is that the minister has always rejected that the measures that are applied are going to mean a cut in the pension. On the contrary, it sells it as being “fairer”, “more equitable” and beneficial for current careers, which are “less linear than before and much more volatile” and, therefore, the last few years of life are not always better. job. In fact, the budgetary impact that is expected to be obtained is neutral.
The other measure that the Government has to tie is the uncapping of the maximum contributions, since currently salaries above 53,958 euros per year do not contribute to the system. The proposal he made at the end of the year was to raise the maximum bases by 30% in the coming decades. Specifically, it proposes a fixed increase of 1,154 percentage points from 2025 to 2050 to place it well above 70,000 euros, to which must be added the annual rise due to the evolution of inflation.
Given the non-conformity of the unions on this issue, where they demand to go even further, Escrivá also proposes establishing a new surcharge on the contribution for the highest salaries. That would be independently of the rise in the maximum bases, according to what he informed Brussels.
But the former president of AIReF will also have to continue negotiating at the same time with the parliamentary groups, if he wants to get their support and thus receive sufficient endorsement from Congress for this new decree. It must not be forgotten that the disbursement of the fourth tranche of European funds depends on this reform: another 10,000 million euros.