Georges Gilkinet, Ecolo Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Mobility, Federal Government, was the guest at 7:50 am Bel RTL on Monday morning. He mentioned the pension reform, still under discussion within the federal government. Some discussions evoke a reduction in certain pensions to balance the deal.
Antonio Solimando: “The Liberals demand from the Minister of Pensions Karine Lalieux that this reform save the current system and help to finance pensions; is this also your opinion?”
Georges Gilkinet: “You have to finance pensions, but believe that it is by taking from some to give to others within the framework of the current pension system, therefore making ideological reforms which are not effective from a budgetary point of view, but which bring even more people, after their career, into a situation of poverty, that is not the right plan. We must increase the activity rate, and therefore the number of contributors to our social security system, find effective and alternative means of financing, to give everyone the means to afford a nursing home and live with dignity. It is through the employment rate that we will get there”.
Does that mean that you can commit, this morning, to saying that it is not the pensioners, with their future planed rights, who are going to contribute to the refinancing of the pension system?
“In any case, this is our approach to the file with the Ecologists, we are not going to call into question the rights, certainly not those of women, we are even going to improve them. We are concerned about sustainably financing our pension system, but that requires an increase in activity and solid alternative financing for our social security”.
Two camps clash: Liberals and CD&V on one side, who want people to work 20 years to be entitled to the minimum pension; the Socialists on the other side who want to limit to 10 years. And Ecolo?
“This government is not cowboys and Indians. Ecolo is really concerned about the impact of the decisions we make on women. They have the lowest pension rights, and we are looking for answers to better value them. The choices we are going to make must lead to better pension rights”.