Work Conference Review: Getting Down to Work on the Pension Agreement
After many years the time has come: the Dutch government and social partners have reached an agreement on the reform of the Dutch pension system. After this memorable fact, we like to look ahead together with our partners. Where clarity has come about the state pension age, much needs to be worked out on supplementary pensions and on self-employed people. The purpose of the work conference on July 11 was to identify questions arising from the pension agreement. In doing so, Netspar tries to be helpful in looking for structure in the task for which the steering committee, which takes the elaboration of the agreement, stands for.
Peter Gortzak (APG), Herman van Kapelle (Aegon), Peter Zwaneveld (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis), Theo Langejan (Pension Federation) and Bas Werker (Netspar) provided the introductions to this conference. All underlined the importance of the pension agreement and noted that there are still many elaboration questions. It must then be shown whether all the goals that have been formulated prove compatible. It is important to bear in mind the wide variety of funds and the difference between funds and insurers.
The CPB calculations provide a global picture at the macro level, while the calculations of the Pension Federation look at the effects of different participant populations. A contract comparison in terms of prosperity (between the two new contracts and in comparison with the existing contracts) has yet to take place. In all cases, the limitations of calculation exercises must also be taken into account. In the sub-sessions questions on ten more specific topics (see below) were collected.
The conference was concluded with a brief consideration by Gert-Jan Buitendijk (SZW), Hedda Renooij (VNO-NCW) and Leonne Jansen (FNV). They acknowledged the importance of a structured follow-up discussion, but also mentioned the complexity. Explanation of the entire transition must be guaranteed.
Themes from pension agreement
The following ten themes from the pension agreement were discussed in the interactive sub-sessions. Results of the sessions are bundled, structured and shared with the participants in this conference:
- Abolition of the average system
- Taxation
- European legal risks
- Valuation rules and indexation
- Allocate life cycles and age dependent
- Intergenerational risk sharing
- WVP with additional solidarity
- Survivor’s pension
- Lump sum
- Self-employed pension
