Fund threatened with bankruptcy
EU Parliament cuts supplementary pension benefits
06/13/2023, 8:49 p.m
A fund for additional EU pensions is running out of money. More than 360 million euros are needed to cover the previous claims. Now the EU Parliament is pulling the ripcord. The payments will be halved and their start postponed.
The controversial additional payments for MEPs in addition to the normal pension are to be reduced. Members of the European Parliament and the European Parliament paid into the so-called voluntary pension fund until 2009 in order to receive an additional pension later. Criticism of the fund has repeatedly been raised in recent years. The background is, among other things, the risk that the fund could become insolvent and that it would have to be topped up with taxpayers’ money.
Now the payments from the fund are to be cut by half, as announced by the Presidency of the EU Parliament. In addition, the age at which payments can be received from the fund will be raised from 65 to 67 years. At the end of 2024, it should be checked whether further measures are necessary. Alternatively, beneficiaries of the pension fund can opt out of the system and receive a one-off payment in return.
In fact, the fund is running out of money. At the end of last year, according to the Secretary General of Parliament, Alessandro Chiocchetti, he still had investments worth 50 million to 55 million euros. In the long term, however, 363 million euros would be needed to cover the claims of the MPs. The fund was founded in 1990 and closed in 2009. Since then, MPs have not been able to join the program.
According to the EU Parliament, MEPs are entitled to an old-age pension from the age of 63. According to this, the pension corresponds to 3.5 percent of the salary for each full year of exercising the mandate, but it is a maximum of 70 percent overall. The costs for this are borne by the budget of the European Parliament. The salaries amount to around 9,800 euros before taxes and duties.