Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-12-Speech-3-277"
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"en.20000412.10.3-277"2
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"Mr President, the ageing of the population and the reduction in the numbers of people of working age, while real enough, have been put forward by the Commission and other Members as a reason to open up the way for pension funds for supplementary pension schemes. The dynamic of growth and job creation has run its course. The capitalisation mechanisms mean adapting retirement pensions to the single market and the introduction of the euro.
Moving in this direction entails the risk of a system based on private insurance, which would gradually replace social security. Welfare and retirement pensions would no longer be rights but would be commodities subject to the laws of the market. The set pension fund strategy essentially aims to drain savings away toward the financial markets. A system of this type is very dangerous and deeply unfair as it benefits the richest people, those who can save money, and leaves the poorest with a pittance of a retirement pension.
Mr Kuckelkorn’s initial report considered the retirement pension primarily as social insurance against certain life risks, rather than a process of accumulating capital. It has been radically changed, however, by the adoption of amendments unreservedly supporting the mechanisms of capitalisation. I cannot, therefore, approve this report which makes the Commission’s approach even worse.
On the contrary, we think that a high level of social protection must be maintained, based on solidarity, regardless of financial profitability. The contributory system guarantees the rights of the employed and provides them with a pension, in the framework of national solidarity between the working population and the retired population, between generations, between men and women, between the public and the private sectors. The objective should be to obtain new resources and to upgrading the purchasing power of retirement pensions from contributions which could be raised from taxes on financial products at the same level as those which apply to wages. Employers’ contributions should be linked to companies’ employment policies and taxes set up on those which make people redundant."@en1
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