The executive has given up on taking “at this stage” the Agirc-Arcco supplementary pension scheme. The social partners expressed their relief after the decline of the government, which planned to put this drain in place via the Social Security finance bill (PLFSS) for 2024.
The government, however, continues to consider using the private sector supplementary pension scheme to increase small pensions, arguing from its surpluses and the future gains that will be brought to it by raising the retirement age to 64. retirement. Tuesday, before the National Assembly, the Minister of Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave confirmed that the government would not table “at this stage” an amendment to the draft Social Security budget imposing a contribution from Agirc-Arrco to the system global pension plan, as he had long envisaged.
A hold up “
Thomas Cazenave, however, wanted to put pressure on the social partners to propose “concrete and rapid progress” on the issue of small pensions. The drain envisaged by the government had provoked an outcry from employers’ and employees’ unions in the face of what some of them were able to describe as a “hold-up”.
“The CFDT is very satisfied. By refusing to make an amendment to the PLFSS, the government rules out the hypothesis of a drain of one billion euros from the accounts of Agirc-Arcco: joint management is reinforced,” welcomed Yvan Ricordeau, cedist negotiator for supplementary pensions. This hand left to the social partners is also “good news” for Cyril Chabanier, the president of the CFTC, who believes that “a priori” the PFLSS should remain unchanged.
Future boost to small pensions
Article 9 of the agreement reached in mid-October between unions and employers on supplementary pensions opens the way to a future boost to small pensions, but only for members of the Agirc-Arrco scheme. It provides for the establishment, by June 2024, of a “joint working group responsible for defining solidarity measures for beneficiaries”.
“The CFDT is one of those who worked to ensure that there was article 9 in the agreement that we signed. We are therefore going to open the project of financing low pensions,” confirms Yvan Ricordeau. The CGT also says it worked for the addition of article 9 so that “we work towards a minimum allocation of points for broken careers (part-time work, periods of precariousness, years of study), therefore the people most penalized by the drop in the observed replacement rate”, i.e. the gap between the level of the final salary and that of the retirement pension, explained its negotiator Denis Gravouil.
“Inter-regime solidarity”
The Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt had criticized the agreement which provides for “new expenditure” by a 4.9% increase in pensions, in line with inflation, and the removal of a 10% discount encouraging employees to postpone their retirement by one year.
This agreement causes “an imbalance in the public accounts of one billion euros”, regretted the minister. His counterpart Thomas Cazenave repeated on Tuesday the government’s position which judges that “the objective of protecting the savings made has been presented in a transparent manner since the start of the consultation on pension reform, including in a logic of inter-regime solidarity” . The government therefore wants the social partners to commit “to define co-financing of minimum employee pensions”.