The pension system returned to surplus in 2021, but this improvement will not last, giving way, from 2023, to a deficit situation for a little over ten years, at least. This is one of the rather unexpected lessons from the annual report of the Pensions Orientation Council (COR), which is to be made public on Thursday 15 September and that The world was able to obtain an almost definitive version. This inventory was particularly awaited, especially by the executive which has shown its desire for reform, the first changes being announced for the summer of 2023 with a possible increase in the age of opening of pension rights.
After having plunged into the red under the effect of the health crisis, the accounts of the pension system have improved very markedly: deficits of 13 to 14 billion euros in 2020, they are back in the green in 2021 , with a positive balance of 900 million euros. The surplus could be even greater in 2022 (+ 3.2 billion euros). This positive trend is – of course – due to the rebound in economic activity, which stimulated contribution receipts and enabled the various schemes, taken as a whole, to completely fill the “hole”.
But the imbalances should arise again, with a significant deterioration between 2023 and 2027. To scrutinize the evolutions to come over the next five decades, the COR has modified its method by building projections with two different conventions (instead of three, so far) and with a range of lower productivity growth assumptions than before (between +0.7% and +1.6% per year on average, compared to +1% and +1, 8%).
Updated data
In the most favorable scenario, the system would return to equilibrium in the mid-2030s. But if we retain the convention that corresponds to current rules and practices, the absorption of the deficit would be further away: “in the mid-2050s”according to the report, provided that productivity increases by 1.6% per year.
The report recalls that the notion of balance (synonymous either with deficit, or surplus, or balance) conceals ” limits ” when it is used to assess the future: it is based on “resource projections” that can be challenged by executive decisions. Therefore, for “assess financial sustainability” of the system, the COR refers rather to the share of expenditure in GDP because it expresses “the level of levies that must be made on the wealth produced (…) to ensure the balance of the system” : in 2021, this proportion amounted to 13.8% of GDP, down by almost one point compared to 2020.
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