Pension reforms in an uncertain world - 20 Jan 2023

The Eurointelligence Podcast

Wolfgang Munchau

News, Eu, European Politics, Political Economy, Italy, Brexit, Recovery Fund, Political Risk, Business, European Union, Netherlands, Ecb, Economics, Uk, Fiscal Union, Government, Transatlantic Relations, European Integration, France, Geopolitics, Eurozone, Banking, China, Spain, Germany, Political Union, Politics, Trade, Eu-china

4.5 • 30 Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode our team talks about the pension reform strikes in France, and why de-globalisation could cause far more disruptive distributional shifts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Eurointelligence podcast. I'm Wolfgang Munchau and with me are Zuzanne Munchank and Jack Smith.
0:08.9	Today we would like to talk about pension reform in France and about de-globalization.
0:14.8	Zosanna, what's going on in France? We've had a pension reform debate pretty much since the 1990s, if not longer.
0:21.7	This seems never to end, does it?
0:23.8	No, it doesn't.
0:25.3	And I think as long as the French pension system is as generous as it is,
0:31.1	and as long as it is unsustainable financially, we will have politicians come up with their
0:37.0	proposal of how to reform it. Now, in the past, we've seen politicians come up with their proposal of how to reform
0:38.4	it. Now, in the past, we've seen two parameters that have been successfully changed. One is the
0:44.1	retirement age that has been lifted from 60s to 62. And the other one is the length of the
0:49.5	contribution. How long do you have to pay in order to get your pension? So these are two parameters.
0:56.4	And the idea behind that you actually use both parameters is that you make sure that you don't end up with a lot of poor pensioners.
1:03.7	So you have the retirement age as requirement plus the contribution rate, which is much longer than, for example, in Germany.
1:10.6	In Germany, you can retire early. There is a retirement than, for example, in Germany. In Germany, you can
1:11.3	retire early. There is a retirement age, but you can retire earlier, but with a lower pension.
1:16.6	And that's not possible in France. Pension reform that we're discussing right now is that the
1:21.6	retirement age will be extended to 64 and that the contribution rate will be extended to 32 years. So this is a gradual
1:31.6	change. This is not going to happen overnight. So for the retirement age, we are looking at
1:36.2	2030 and from the contribution rate is going to be achieved by 2027. There are, of course,
1:43.0	as always, exemptions. There are for long careers. So those people
1:47.4	who start at the age of 15 and 16 to work, there will also be more negotiations and
1:52.3	professionals that have a certain criteria of hardship with the trade unions. We have seen,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wolfgang Munchau, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wolfgang Munchau and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.