Government Bows to Public Pressure on Retirement Age
March 15th, 2010
The planned reform to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 has been abandoned by the Government after it was rejected by the public
The raising of the retirement age from 65 to 67 will not take place under this legislature, due to the negative repercussions it produced among the public, which were much greater than supporters of the reform had anticipated. The Executive has decided to sacrifice its proposal in favour of a political and social consensus that will not come back to haunt them come election day.
Members of the Cabinet, including President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, have already ceased to mention the raising of the retirement age in their public declarations. However, the Government will not entirely withdraw the proposal from negotiations.
Zapatero’s team now fear that the retreat will provoke criticism from national and international institutions who were in favour of heavy reforms for public pensions. Moncloa Palace is unwilling to admit that its change in direction has anything to do with the pressure applied in the streets by the CC OO (Workers Commissions) and UGT (General Union of Workers). It was leaders of both these syndicates, Ignacio Fernández Toxo and Cándido Méndez, who were the first to assert their certainty that the reform would not go ahead.
The Secretary of State for Social Security, Octavio Granado, stated on Tuesday that “there is no one single method that can accommodate for all of the problems” and defends the idea that pensions should correspond with contribution. He acknowledged that there has been a deficit in information and explanations offered by the Executive with regards to the project, approved in Cabinet on 29th January. “We need to discuss the questions in a calm manner, without dramatisation. This country needs a Social Security that does not not hold back economic growth and continues progressing in equity and social coherence. Things must be explained better. We need to find social and political agreement”, he said. Granado stressed that an approved reform counts on the support of social agents. The presence of business organisations and syndicates “is fundamental in building the trust between the contributor and the pensioner”.
Octavio Granado spoke over breakfast at the European Forum, and during his appearance he only referred to the withdrawal of the retirement age reform when confronted by questions from journalists. He replied that to prolong working life from the age of 65 to that of 67 is only a project and proposals will be neither removed from negotiations nor abandoned. “The final agreement will be based upon a common consensus”, he stressed.
These words were in accordance with those expressed on Monday night by the President in front of TVE cameras. Rodríguez Zapatero insisted that the proposal of the Executive was open to other approaches.
Even on February 22nd the head of Work and Immigration, Celestino Corbacho, confirmed in Parliament that the public pensions will only be reformed through political consensus and called for parlementarians to view the Executive plan as a programme that is not yet closed and to present alternatives that might tackle and resolve the consequences of the ageing population.
Story from Sur in English
