The Observatory of European Systems of Complementary Social Pension Plans of the University of Barcelona, which was created a year ago, will launch its first dissemination activity for the audience on April 29. The activity is a debate cycle on complemenary social pension plans, that is, the set of actions to fulfil the public pensions from a private entrepreneurial and individual initiative.
The first session of the cycle will talk about the latest recommendations on complementary social pension plans in the Toledo Pact Committee approved by the Spanish Parliament and national budget for 2021. Among the participants are M. Francisca Gómez-Jover Torregosa, general assistant manager for Organization, Studies and Complementary Social Pensions of the Directorate-General of Insurance and Pension Fund; Maria Mercè Perea i Conillas, spokesperson of the Socialist Parliamentary Party in the Toledo Pact Committee; Pilar González de Futos, CEOE vice-president and president of UNESPA; Miguel Ángel Martínez-Aldama, president of INVERCO, and Carlos Bravo Fernández, federal secretary for Public Policy and Social Protection in CCOO.
In October 2020, the Toledo Pact Committee from the Spanish Parliament, regained ways to achieve a consensus, which were broken in 2013, and approved twenty-one new recommendations. The main core ideas of this review in the Pact are the recovery of CPI as a reference to revalue pensions, place the real retirement age closer to the legal one and the commitment to clean the deficit of Social Security before late 2023, focusing on the sustainability of the pension public system and the sufficiency of its benefits. Regarding the complementary social pension plans, it is noteworthy that "it is committed to promote occupational pension plans resulting from collective negotiation".
Five more debates
The debate cycle will continue with the following sessions:
• EPSV (Voluntary Mutual Benefit Organisations), a basque model of complementary pension plan (17/06/2021)
• Complementary social pensions in Catalonia (30/09/2021)
• White paper on complementary social pensions in Catalonia (18/11/2021)
• Complementary social pension plan and social dialogue in Catalonia (24/02/2022)
The objective of the Observatory of European Systems of Complementary Social Pension Plans is to promote teaching interdisciplinary research activities in this field. It aims to influence, at a social level, the debate that takes revolves around the reform of pension plan systems in Europe in general and in Spain in particular.
The Observatory counts on the support of the main organizations related to complementary social pension plans: management (UNESPA, INVERCO, PIMEC and Fepime), labour unions (CCO Catalunya and UGT Catalunya) and professional associations (Col·legi d'Actuaris de Catalunya, Col·legi de Mediadors d'Assegurances de Barcelona, Aedipe Catalunya, ICEA, OCOPEN).