Supporting national strategies for safe and sustainable pensions through an integrated approach

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Commission communication on sustainable pensions, drafted by Carlo FATUZZO (EPP-ED, Italy). (Please refer to the document dated 19/02/02).

In addition, it stressed that in order to secure pensions in the long term, it is essential that comprehensive reform strategies are drawn up before acute financing problems arise. The aim of this reform process should also be to expand the basis of contributors and to explore alternative forms of financing statutory pension systems. The maintenance of pensions in keeping with living standards can be seen as as problem of distribution: the key question is whether the macroeconomic increases in productivity will be high enough in the decades ahead to secure rising added value even against a background of falling unemployment figures so as to finance a higher proportion of collective consumption for pensioners, and whether the political will exists to redistribute wealth in order to secure pensions in the long term. The Commission should carry out a comparison between the current pension systems in the EU in terms of sustainability and impact. Member States are asked to give priority to gender equality in their pensions systems, which includes the individualisation of pension, social security and taxation systems, while ensuring that existing pension and derived rights under the current systems are not lost or devalued; it also includes an adjustment of pension systems, whereby pension contributions are accumulated by people who are temporarily providing care in the family.