spain
The country’s unemployment rate reached 18.83 per cent last month: in other words, more than 4.3 million out of work
08.02.10 - 14:02 -
Juan Francisco Medina, 61
Last Friday the Government approved a draft bill that would raise the retirement age from 65 to 67, an idea strongly opposed by the country’s largest labour unions.
The plan aims to “guarantee the sustainability” of the Spanish retirement system through to the year 2030, Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega told reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting.
She said the higher retirement age would be phased-in gradually, beginning in 2013 and becoming fully effective in 2025.
Spanish unions greeted the formal announcement with hostility, coming as it did just hours after the National Statistics Institute said that Spain’s unemployment rate reached 18.83 per cent last month, which represents more than 4.3 million people without jobs.
Seizing on the latest jobless figures, the conservative main opposition Popular Party called the initiative to raise the retirement age an attempt to distract attention from the increase in the ranks of the unemployed.
The proposed change “will not affect current pensions,” Fernández de la Vega said, citing the “challenge” posed by the aging of the Spanish population.
Government demographers forecast that the number of Spaniards over the age of 64 will double over the next 40 years, constituting nearly 32 per ent of the total population. By 2049, according to that estimate, the ratio of workers to retirees and minors will be 10 to nine.
Fernández de la Vega said the government’s bill would be reviewed by the parliamentary committee named to monitor implementation of the so-called Toledo Pact, an accord among politicians, business and labour intended to ensure the long-term viability of the pension system.
“We will seek the maximum consensus” on the measure, the deputy premier said.
Joining De la Vega at Friday’s press conference, Economy Minister Elena Salgado said that while Spain has time to adjust the retirement age, the process must begin now so as “to do it as gradually as possible.”
The secretary-general of the UGT, one of Spain’s major unions, told the press that raising the retirement age will not achieve the goal of guaranteeing pensions in the long term.
The government plan “implies a cutback of pensions, of their amount, and a toughening of the conditions of access,“ Candido Méndez said. “It’s a very controversial measure that can only be seen as short-term, probably to satisfy the financial markets, and I don’t know if it will even satisfy those markets.”
The head of the other big labour organisation, Comisiones Obreras, said his group is adamantly opposed to the “unjust” proposal.
Conversely, the CEOE business confederation welcomed the government initiative as the opening of a discussion that is “very important for society.”
