“I am delighted we are dealing with pension rights from the point of view of the right to acquire them rather than that of pushing up pension contributions and retirement ages,” said GUE/NGL MEP Patrick Le Hyaric during this afternoon's debate on improving worker mobility through improvements in the acquisition and preservation of supplementary pension rights.

Although he recognised that what is on the table today is a step in the right direction, he said it is still quite limited because it only deals with supplementary rights to the basic state pension.

MEP Le Hyaric expressed his concerns about the “full frontal attack” by the Troika or certain recommendations by the Commission against public systems and pushing towards pension systems based on capitalisation*.

He added: “We want to stick up for redistribution-based public systems which are better for people who are working and those already in retirement. We refuse a large-scale European market of capitalisation-based pension systems, which is what is in the Commission's files.”

*Capitalisation means that the contributions paid by employees and the employer are accumulated to cover future benefits paid out  to the employees who made the contributions.

GUE/NGL Press Contacts:
Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20
Emily Macintosh +32 470 85 05 08
David Lundy +32 470 85 05 09
European United Left / Nordic Green Left
European Parliamentary Group