MADRID, 17 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The new Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, will meet this Monday afternoon with the general secretaries of CCOO and UGT, Unai Sordo and Pepe Álvarez, and the presidents of CEOE and Cepyme, Antonio Garamendi and Gerardo Cuerva, in what will be his first formal meeting with social agents since he took office, replacing José Luis Escrivá.
On the table will be the pension increase for next year, which will be 3.8% for contributors; between 5% and 7% for the minimum contributory income, with the exception of those for widows with family responsibilities, which will be revalued by 14.1%, and 6.9% for the non-contributory income and the Minimum Living Income (IMV). ).
In this first contact between the minister and the social agents, the unions have already said that one of their objectives will be to get the Government to immediately extend the relief contract for the manufacturing industry, whose current regulation expires next December 31 and whose continuity they consider essential, for example for the automobile sector.
In this legislature, Saiz faces several challenges inherited from the pension reforms undertaken in the previous stage, as well as other new ones included in the commitments acquired by the PSOE to achieve the investiture of Pedro Sánchez as President of the Government.
The previous minister of the sector carried out several far-reaching reforms for the pension system in the last legislature, some with the participation of social agents, and others with the sole support of the unions, which will continue to be deployed in the next period .
During the inauguration of her portfolio, Minister Saiz committed to continue improving minimum and non-contributory pensions, to increase the pension fund and to complete the regulation of early retirement for especially difficult or painful professions.
The new Minister of Social Security also pointed out that in this legislature it will be “key” to continue deploying the pension reform, the new self-employed contribution system and collective plans, “very relevant milestones” of the last legislature.
Likewise, he said that he will seek to increase dialogue with the different administrations to reinforce the territorial articulation of the system; develop new modalities of partial or active retirement to provide more “flexibility and opportunities” for a progressive and voluntary exit from the labor market, as well as reduce the gender gap in pensions.
In the last legislature, the Government launched its pension reform in two phases. The first leg established the revaluation of pensions with the CPI, reviewed the early retirement model and introduced greater incentives to delay retirement from the labor market in order to bring the effective retirement age closer to the legal age.
In this first phase of the reform, the so-called sustainability factor of the 2013 reform of the PP Government was eliminated, which was replaced by the so-called Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI), whose entry into force occurred this same year and with which established an initial premium of 0.6%, which will gradually rise to 1.2% in 2029.
The second leg of the pension reform, approved in March of this year and focused on obtaining income to guarantee the sustainability of the system, contemplates increases in maximum bases and contributions, improvements in minimum pensions and the progressive establishment, starting 2027, of a dual model to calculate the pension, with the possibility of choosing between the last 25 years of contributions or 29 years, discarding in the latter case the worst two.
According to this reform, from next year until 2050, the maximum contribution bases will rise annually with the CPI plus a fixed amount of 1.2 points, and the minimum contributory pensions will also experience an increase from 2024 to 2027. progressively higher than the CPI to ensure that at the end of said period they are not lower than the poverty threshold calculated for a household composed of two adults.
Along with these two reforms, the Executive carried out other reforms in the previous legislature that will continue to be deployed in the coming years, such as the reform of the contribution system for the self-employed based on their net returns and the reform of the Law on Health Plans. Employment Pensions, with which an updated regulatory framework was established to promote savings linked to the workplace among all workers.
This regulation, approved just a few days before the general elections of July 23, established the basic elements for the constitution and operation of the new open, publicly promoted employment pension funds.
Precisely, another of the great challenges of this legislature in terms of Social Security will be the start-up, scheduled for the coming weeks, of the publicly promoted macro pension fund designed by the Escrivá Ministry in the previous legislature.
Along with all of the above, PSOE and Sumar included in their agreement for the constitution of the new Government, various matters that affect Social Security and that will be part of the measures to be addressed by the Ministry of Social Security in this legislature.
Thus, said agreement states that a new regulation of partial retirement and the relief contract will be carried out that guarantees the quality in the employment of relievers and that takes into account the greater difficulty of carrying out certain activities from a certain age. , especially from the manufacturing industry.
PSOE and Sumar have committed to continue updating pensions with the CPI, to continue increasing minimum and non-contributory pensions above the revaluation of contributory pensions, until reaching the European average, and to continue making progress in eliminating the gap in gender pensions, including new mechanisms to reduce this gap.
At the same time, and for the self-employed group, the parties have committed to extending the possibility of applying the reduced contribution (flat rate) to Social Security in the periods after the start of the activity in which drops in their income occur. income below the SMI, when they declare by direct estimation, all without loss of social protection rights.
