The Government says that the pension spending that Europe expects for Spain is only one tenth higher than expected

April 19 () –

The Government has called for “tranquility” and has assured that the pension spending forecast over GDP that the European Commission foresees for Spain in the period 2022-2050 only represents one tenth more than the forecast figure reflected in the Law. of the Pension Reform.

According to sources from the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, the level of spending shown in the Aging Report, prepared by the European Commission (EC) and the Aging Group (AWG), reflects a 15.1 % of GDP in the period 2022-2050, which is only one tenth above the forecast figure reflected in the Pension Reform Law.

For this reason, these same sources have asked to wait for the “global picture” and also evaluate the income projections generated by the measures, which AIReF will issue in its conclusions in 2025.

“In 2025, AIReF will publish and send to the Government an Evaluation Report with projections of the estimated impact of the measures adopted from 2020 to strengthen the income of the public pension system in the period 2022-2050. That will be the global picture what we are waiting for,” they emphasize.

The European Commission has warned this Friday that Spain is the EU country where a greatest increase in pension spending is expected due to the impact of the system reforms, which according to Brussels will mean an increase in spending of up to 4.6 percentage points. of GDP in the projection period, which covers until 2070.

“In summary, the measures adopted in 2021 and 2023 lead to an increase in public spending on pensions of 3.3 percentage points of GDP in 2050 and 5 percentage points in 2070,” says the 2024 Aging Report published this Friday by the community executive.

Given this, Social Security sources have called for “tranquility and hope”, since the Spanish economy and the labor market are showing “great dynamism” and the projections of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of different organizations have improved, while that employment “improves the expected records”, with 21 million members.

Likewise, the Ministry has assured that the reforms to the system are giving “very evident results”, despite the fact that the measures are not fully deployed.

Thus, they have emphasized that early retirements have been reduced “extraordinarily”, going from representing more than 40% of new registrations before 2020 to representing 34.1% so far in 2024. Likewise, delayed retirements They already represent 10.7%, compared to the 4.8% they represented before the reform.

Likewise, income from social contributions is growing at a rate of 10% due to “the good performance of the labor market”, which has undergone an “enormous transformation” after the labor reform.

“In contrast to the classic conception of tightening the parameters of the system, the pension reform balanced elements of containing spending growth with measures aimed at reinforcing the system's income. In addition, protecting those who needed it most at times truly complex, such as the pandemic and the economic crisis derived from Russian aggression in Ukraine,” they emphasize.