Time is running out for the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, who is finalizing the technical details to close the pending measures of the pension reform with Brussels, who has already warned that if they are not fulfilled “it will cost a lot”. Escrivá hopes to be able to complete the three-way negotiations within the government itself, in Congress and in the social dialogue as soon as possible.
After months of intense work, the reform -which seeks to improve the system’s income with measures such as the uncapping of the maximum bases- faces its final stretch with increasingly tight deadlines in a year marked by the double electoral date.
“There will be an agreement before Easter,” Escrivá himself assured this week in Brussels after meeting with the Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, and acknowledging that he was going “detail by detail” in a complex reform of “great depth” that The Council of Ministers is to be held in the coming weeks.
Together with the progressive elimination of the cap for which the highest salaries are quoted, that so-called de-cap, the other leg of the reform involves raising the period of years that are taken into account to calculate the pension, an increase that will be accompanied by other measures to make, defends Escrivá, the most equitable system.
Rejection of Podemos to expand the computation
In this approach, Social Security has met with the rejection of Podemos, contrary to raising this period, and of the unions, which concluded that this element should not have entered the perimeter of this negotiation.
Escrivá has maintained this week that extending the computation period continues to form part of the reform measures, although it is unknown if it will be as initially proposed – progressively going from the current 25 years to 30 years, but computing only the best 28 – or with changes to be able to finish fitting the negotiation.
In this context, the objective of the Ministry is to finish closing all the details with Brussels as soon as possible to sit down again with the unions, the employers and the parliamentary forces before taking the norm to the Council of Ministers.
It is at this last point of the political groups where the deadlines become tighter, since the majorities on which the Government has relied to carry out the most relevant reforms begin to move in an electoral period of regional and municipal governments. What happened with the labor reform, which despite having the social dialogue agreement was saved from falling in Congress due to an error by the PP, has flown over in negotiations of some measures that seek to guarantee the sustainability and sufficiency of the system of pensions.
The UGT and CCOO unions have insisted this week that “they have no news” about the reform and have asked the Ministry of Inclusion to convene the Toledo Pact and the social dialogue table, which has not held formal meetings since the end of the year past. The CEOE employers will also attend this meeting of the social dialogue, which, however, has stood out almost from the beginning of the agreement given its frontal rejection of the top of the maximum bases, a measure that entails an increase in labor costs for companies.
Along with this element, it would also have been considered to include an additional surcharge for the contributions of the highest salaries, something that employers do not like either, although it is not a completely closed measure, explain sources familiar with the negotiations. This last milestone of the pension reform was scheduled to be met at the end of last year, but from Social Security they insist that these are flexible calendars and that this reform will not condition the delivery of funds.
