The Green Paper, entitled “A Future for Our Pensions”, sketches the background of the current situation before asking a series of questions regarding the sustainability of the present situation, opportunities for modernising and simplifying the system and the financial viability of the policy.

“What comes to the fore above all else is the extreme complexity of our pensions system,” said the Green Paper task force in a statement. There are three main groups of pensioners: employees, public service workers and the self-employed. Within that are a variety of rules on retirement age, calculations and conditions of payment. On the one hand, the task force says, the differences within the system allow for the special characteristics of each sector to be taken into account. On the other hand, the system allows for different approaches to the same situation, which does not add to transparency.

The Green Paper is intended to be a basis for reform of the pensions system, but prime minister Yves Leterme, accompanying Daerden for the launch of the document, stressed that his government will not be bound by a calendar. On the question of raising the retirement age to 63, something Darden has previously suggested, Leterme told the VRT politics programme De zevende dag that any change would be for the long term. However, he considered that asking people to work a few years longer was “perfectly feasible.”

At the same time, on another TV station, Daerden repeated his support for a proposal to raise the state pension to €1,450 net per month. According to some figures, 21% of those who have to subsist on the state pension alone are living under the poverty line.

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