Pensions "Conclave": What points should the social partners agree on?

The pensions "conclave," which began six months ago, is soon coming to an end. And while the negotiations on the legal retirement age have generated a lot of discussion, the discussions between the social partners are far from being limited to this topic.

While the discussions are due to end on Tuesday, June 17 , we look back at the more or less sensitive points that remain to be decided.

Retirement at 64. The Medef (French employers' association), the main representative of employers, has shown its inflexibility on the retirement age of 64. Without wanting to say so very clearly, the unions seem to have taken note of this situation. They would not give up demanding a return to 62, but would agree to sign an agreement if the retirement age were lowered for certain categories of people.

Hardship and professional wear and tear. Offering early retirement to people working in arduous or exhausting conditions could be a compromise. The Medef (French employers' association) has proposed that people with disabilities or permanent incapacity be able to retire at 61 or 60, depending on the case (currently 62). But "the account is not there for employees," Christelle Thieffinne for the CFE-CGC told Agence France-Presse, who believes that there is a "blind spot" in the employers' proposals: that of people who are worn out by 60 but not recognized as disabled. For its part, the CFDT (French employers' association) is fiercely defending a proposal to extend early retirement linked to the C2P (professional prevention account). It proposes that the C2P could apply to people exposed to "manual handling of loads," difficult postures, and mechanical vibrations.

The level of mothers' pensions. The Medef suggests "allowing women who have acquired additional quarters linked to maternity to benefit from an improvement in their pension level by modifying the calculation of the average annual salary […] no longer based on the twenty-five best years but on twenty-three or twenty-four years, which will mechanically improve their pension level." But, to "finance the additional cost, the parental surcharge from age 63, introduced by the Borne reform, would be eliminated." With the surcharge, some mothers can, at age 63, see their pension increase by 1.25% per quarter of contributions, or a maximum of 5%.

Unraveling the pension reduction. The pension reduction is the penalty that reduces the pension paid to people who retire at the legal age, but without having contributed a sufficient number of quarters (172 required by the Borne reform, or 43 years). This reduction is applied to retirements up to the age of 67. The unions propose that this age be lowered to 66. This measure would particularly benefit women, many of whom must wait until 67 to retire without penalty.

How to get a pension without a reduction.

Long careers cut? This is one of the concessions that the unions could make: to avoid excessively increasing the cost of measures for women and hardship, consideration could be given to cutting the long career system introduced by the Borne reform.

Towards financial equilibrium by 2030. This conclave was intended to achieve financial equilibrium. According to current forecasts from the Pensions Advisory Council, the pension system deficit will reach 6.6 billion euros in 2030. However, employers' organizations refuse to increase employee or employer contributions.

Retirees put to contribution. The unions are treading on eggshells on this issue, but they do not reject the idea that retirees could be called upon to rebalance the pension system. The scenarios considered by the "conclave" would be a form of under-indexing of pensions to inflation—as is already the case for the Agirc-Arrco supplementary pensions—or an increase in the CSG rates, which could spare low-income retirees.