C Explanatory memorandum by Mr Marquet,
rapporteur
1. The Rapporteur of the Committee on Equal Opportunities
for Women and Men, Ms Anna Čurdová (Czech Republic, SOC), has submitted
an excellent report on the need for “decent pensions for women”
(and how to achieve that goal), based, inter
alia, on solid research from two experts. I fully subscribe
to her analysis and her conclusions, and wholeheartedly congratulate
her and the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men on
the report. I believe that the Social, Health and Family Affairs
Committee should fully support the draft resolution and the draft
recommendation tabled. However, I would like to strengthen the principle
of guaranteeing a personal pension entitlement to every individual,
as this would allow the disabled to be included and survivors’ pensions
to be phased out.
2. The Assembly seems not to have debated the issue of pension
reform as such for a very long time. This is regrettable, since
most Council of Europe member states face similar challenges to
the maintenance of adequate and sustainable pensions which risk
wiping out one of the major achievements of the last half-century:
that old age is no longer synonymous with poverty. In other words,
we are again facing a big potential challenge to social cohesion,
in particular in view of the current economic and financial crisis
and the over-indebtedness of states, which exacerbates the long-foreseeable
danger posed by the demographic evolution in most member states.
3. The design of pension schemes differs greatly among Council
of Europe member states, many of which have been reformed in recent
years with a view to attempting to ensure the financial sustainability
in particular of public pension schemes – by, for example, raising
the minimum retirement age, introducing or strengthening second
– or third pillar private occupational or individual pension schemes,
switching from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes,
etc. It is now possible to attempt a first evaluation of both the
positive and negative effects of these reform efforts: in particular
of their major goal – have they helped to ensure that retirement
pensions will continue to be sufficient to offer everyone a reasonable
standard of living, above the national poverty line, while at the
same time ensuring that the cost for the next generation remains
reasonable?
4. This is too big and complex a question to try and answer in
an opinion penned in the space of two weeks. I thus believe it is
urgent for the Assembly to deal with the issue of “decent pensions
for all”, and would like to invite the Social, Health and Family
Affairs Committee to support the amendment I would like to propose
to this effect.
