Pensions. To stabilize budgets, the European Commission recommends safeguarding investment into research and innovation, education and energy and making social protection schemes more “viable and effective.” About pensions in particular, the European executive reminds that broad reforms are currently underway to extend the duration of active life to face demographic ageing. In France, the Commission points out that it is currently positive and that balance should be restored in 2018. It encourages the country to keep extending active life, pointing out that nothing has been planned for after 2020. Still as regards pensions, the Commission points out, “it is necessary to attract and maintain older workers in employment beyond current retirement patterns, in line with improvements in life expectancy.” The Commission then adds that the Member States have to consider the adequacy of the level of pensions, to prevent poverty in old age. The recommendations also call to limit the cost of labor, shifting the fiscal burden “towards environmentally-harmful practices, consumption and real estate,” adding, “there is no evidence of an overall reduction in labor taxation.” This is particularly true for the recommendations made to France.
On Wednesday, the European Commission published recommendations on measures to stabilize budgets and the economic and labor market reforms undertaken by the Twenty-Seven. These national recommendations are part of the European semester introduced in 2010 to better coordinate the Member States’ economic policies, and notably anticipate severe imbalances such as heavy trade deficits or a high unemployment rate. (Ref. 120353)
Pensions. To stabilize budgets, the European Commission...
Do you have information to share with us?