Pensions: experts recommend financial “balancing” measures

In a “opinion” rendered Thursday, September 22, the pension monitoring committee recommends that the government act to fill the deficits, by reviewing all the possible solutions without favoring one in particular.

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Face “The balancing problems” financial for the pension system, it is advisable to “find an answer”, which is not necessarily unequivocal. It is one of the protruding messages that a group of experts formulates in a “opinion” made public Thursday, September 22. It falls a few hours after an interview with BFM-TV by Emmanuel Macron, in which the Head of State reaffirms the “need” to transform pension plans, the idea being to “work more” the assets in order to “Defend the French social model”.

The opinion released Thursday afternoon is written by the pension monitoring committee (CSR), the mission of which is to give the alert if our pension system starts to the drift, with regard to the objectives that the law assigns him: budgetary sustainability, equity between the insured, solidarity between the generations … “if necessary”, this body, chaired by the economist Didier Blanchet, makes proposals, so as to bring the system back in the right path. This is what happened in 2017, when the CSR had drawn the alarm signal “on deficits which (…) started to dig”.

He then invited the government to act, by reviewing the measures that can be taken, but without favoring one. His recommendation had been reiterated in the next two years. In 2020 and 2021, he had, on the other hand, refrained from issuing the slightest recommendation, because – in particular – of the “very particular” context linked to the health crisis. Consequently, the whole question was whether the committee would again challenge the public authorities, as at the beginning of Mr. Macron’s first five -year term. A question all the stronger since the controversy has been raging, for months, on the severity of the financial difficulties of the system.

Lighting on the impacts

This new opinion therefore concludes in the affirmative: the problem must be dealt with. To support its remarks, the CSR is based on the latest projections that the Pension Orientation Council (COR) presented, on September 15, in its annual report. This document shows that the system returned to the surpluses in 2021 (+ 900 million euros), but that it should plunge back into the red from 2023, and get out of it until the second half of the 2030s, in the most optimistic scenario.

In addition, underlines the CSR, the “results” turn out “much less favorable” if we refer to the previous simulations, made in 2021: now, either it would take more time to fill the hole, or this There would remain, in variable proportions depending on the rate of growth and the accounting agreement retained. The uncertainties are important, with regard to the magnitude of the imbalances to come, but the “short and medium term” risk is very real, especially since the productivity of our economy is likely to bend, which would accentuate the degradation of accounts. This is why the question of corrective measures arises.

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/Media reports.