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Over 80 percent of EU pensioners relied on a state pension as their only source of income in 2023. | Dumitru Doru\/EPA<\/p>\n\u201cYou can\u2019t buy pension reform,\u201d said a deputy finance minister. \u201cIt\u2019s going to hit the nerve of what democracy is about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over 80 percent of EU pensioners relied on a state pension as their only source of income in 2023. | Dumitru Doru\/EPA<\/p>\n
Pension reform also has a habit of bringing protesters onto the streets. In Brussels, police clashed<\/a> with trade unions on Tuesday, who were demonstrating over austerity measures that include raising the age of retirement from 65 to 67 by 2030. Belgium got off lightly when compared to France, which witnessed months of protests<\/a> in 2023 when President Emmanuel Macron raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.<\/p>\n Even then, France\u2019s recently reinstated prime minister, S\u00e9bastien Lecornu, announced Tuesday that he\u2019d put Macron\u2019s pensions reforms on ice to overcome a parliamentary crisis<\/a> that\u2019s made it impossible to pass a budget. Postponing the reforms could cost Paris up to \u20ac400 million next year at a time when the government tries to tighten its belt and reduce the country\u2019s ballooning debt burden.<\/p>\n The Commission\u2019s focus would stop short of setting retirement age or mandating monthly payouts to pensioners. Brussels\u2019 reform plans instead home in on incentivizing citizens to save for retirement and encouraging companies to offer corporate pension plans to employees.<\/p>\n CSRs are part of an annual fiscal surveillance exercise that the Commission uses to coordinate economic policies across the bloc. These recommendations are negotiated with EU capitals in a bid to fix a country\u2019s most pressing economic problems. The Commission doesn’t consider this coercion, just sound economics.<\/p>\n