Pensions, beyond the financial debate

Social partners and experts on all sides are sharpening their weapons as the Frieden government announces a major debate on pensions. The exercise is not new in itself, but its theatricality reflects a desire to go further than a discussion on the part of the CSV-DP coalition. Others before it have sounded the alarm.

Like a sea serpent, the pensions debate resurfaces periodically in the public arena. In 1997, Jean-Claude Juncker warned of the "pensions wall" into which the system would plunge by 2015. In 2012, the Juncker-Asselborn II government gave birth to a reform that was intended to be a homeopathic dose, almost imperceptible for the first to retire and whose effects would be amplified over time. Every five years, the Inspectorate General of Social Security (IGSS) publishes an interim technical report, which it hopes will trigger new work on reform. The 2022 report elicited a measured response – the parties were not going to risk threatening voters' pensions on the eve of a great election year. The blow was delayed by the announcement of this debate on pensions as soon as the government had been formed.