Documents
Sustainability of pension schemes for government employees of European Member States
Final Report
Joost de Winter: Mercer Human Resource Consulting joost.de.winter@mercer.com
In Lisbon, the SPC (Social Protection Committee) was commissioned to conduct a study on the long-term development of the social security system and the sustainability of pension systems in particular. In recent years a number of studies on these issues were undertaken. During the Irish Presidency a study on public sector pension systems was presented. In this study, a broad range of policy issues relating to demographic trends and the sustainability of the pension systems were investigated. Chapter 2 summarises the main conclusions of the study of the Irish Presidency.
In addition to the research done during the Irish Presidency, the Dutch Presidency, through the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (responsible for the functioning of public administration and for issues relating to civil servants), has opted for a quantitative approach to investigating the problems relating to the sustainability of pension systems operated by state employers.
Ideally the policy discussion on the future and sustainability of the pension facilities provided by state employers is conducted on the basis of a quantitative comparative study of the pension systems of all Member States. This benchmarking of pension schemes and the measures taken to reform them is aimed at facilitating the discussion between Member States on pension scheme reform. However, given the relatively short time and the difficulties involved in gathering the required data, the quantitative part of this study is limited to a comparison of pensions applicable to civil servants and other employees of governmental bodies in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Sweden. The pension systems of these four countries represent a wide variety of pension systems in the EU, as will be explained in chapter 4. Chapter 4 also deals with a broader qualitative comparison of the pension systems which apply to civil servants and (other) employees of governments of those Member States (19) that responded to the questionnaire.
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