Experts Call for Rise in Retirement Age
Financial experts debated the need for a reform of the pension system at Bled on Thursday, agreeing that the retirement age should be raised to tackle the ageing of the population. Furthermore, extensive reforms of state expenditures for pensions and health care are needed to prevent public finances from collapsing.
According to Robert Holzmann of the World Bank, the ways to address the problem of pensions are well known if limited in scope, but they require parallel reforms of the labour and financial markets.
Holzmann believes that if the retirement age is not upped, some 80% of Europe's population will be too young or too old to work.
He added that labour market reforms were needed to provide measures to encourage the elderly to continue working and companies to keep them employed.
Financial reforms must meanwhile increase the profitability of retirement funds, he added.
The over 100 participants of the three-day event were addressed by Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk, who stressed the need for consistency in reforms which are required due to the ageing population and low birth rate.
These reforms must guarantee stability, so they must be an ongoing process of adaptation to demographic change, he said.
According to Bajuk, the success of the reform also requires inter-generational consensus.
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