Challenges in Combating Pensioner Poverty What alternative options for a policy direction in EU

Transcription

1 European Commission Challenges in Combating Pensioner Poverty What alternative options for a policy direction in EU Speakers Roles MONDAY 4 December Opening Session Hannu Uusitalo will describe what role, if any, issues related to pensioner poverty have played in the Finnish pension reforms. He will also describe the main goals and anticipated effects of the statutory earnings-related pension reform 2005 in Finland. The problem of poverty measurement in the Finnish context will also be shortly described. Hannu Uusitalo is director of the Finnish Centre for Pensions (ETK) responsible for research, statistics and planning. ETK is one of the host institutes for the conference. Georg Fischer will talk about the pension reforms in EU Member States, and will give his views on the implications of these reforms for the adequacy of retirement incomes. Georg Fischer is the head of Unit Social Protection, Social Services at the DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, The European Commission st Afternoon Plenary Session: Design and reforms of minimum income guarantee and general public earnings-related pension schemes and their impact on retirement incomes and pensioner poverty Chairperson: Georg Fischer (the European Commission) Short orientation: Klaas de Vos (CenERData, Tilburg University, The Netherlands) Klaas de Vos will provide a short orientation on how minimum income schemes (minimum guaranteed pensions; minimum social assistance provisions) are becoming more prevalent in EU countries, how different parameters of public DB schemes are changing, and how both these changes are likely to impact on retirement incomes and pensioner poverty. He will be speaking for about minutes. Klaas de Vos is a senior researcher at CentERdata, Tilburg University. He is an expert on pension systems and on poverty and social inclusion, and has been one of the contributors to the research on elderly poverty that the European Centre has recently undertaken for the European Commission. 1

2 Speaker 1: Andrew Latto (Policy Team on Pension Credit and Pensioner Poverty, The United Kingdom) Andrew Latto will reflect on how UK s MIG and subsequently Pensions Credit schemes have contributed towards improving retirement incomes and in reducing pensioner poverty in the UK. He will also shed some light on how State Second Pension (S2P) has been developing, and what considerations of redistribution have been taken into account in the proposed reforms in S2P. He will speak for about minutes. Andrew is currently Deputy Head of policy on Pension Credit and Pensioner Poverty, State Pensions Analysis Division, Department of Work and Pensions. Speaker 2: Josef Bauernberger (Social Insurance Department, Austria) Josef Bauernberger will provide an overview on how public pensions in Austria have been reformed and on the long-term financial effects thereof for the pension insurance. He will also present Austria s minimum pension regulations in order to combat pensioners poverty in Austria. He will speak for about 15 minutes. Josef Bauernberger is a member of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Social Security, Generations and Consumer Protection (department: "Social Insurance"; Unit - "Financial and Economic Affairs of the Pension Insurance"); he is also responsible for pensionquestions at the "Sub Group on Indicators" of the "Social Protection Committee". Speaker 3: Aurelio Fernandez (Executive Adviser of the Secretary of State for Social Security, Spain) Aurelio Fernandez will discuss what reform options Spain has and how these options may have been defined in light of pension policy experiences of other European countries. He will also mention how the pensioner poverty risk will be one of the considerations in the pension strategy in Spain. He will speak for about minutes. Aurelio Fernandez is the Executive Advisor of the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for Social Security. His work focuses on proposing and developing Spanish international presence in different international forums related to social security and pension reforms. This include his participation as one of the SPC Spanish representatives, as well as contacts with relevant international organisations: ISSA;OECD, IMF, the European Centre, etc. It involves also monitoring of current trends among countries for the purpose of the Spanish Government s strategic planning. 2

3 MONDAY 4 December nd Afternoon Plenary Session: Non-financial Defined Contribution schemes as well as introduction of funded statutory pensions as a pension policy and their likely impact on retirement incomes and pensioner poverty Chairperson: Bernd Marin (Executive Director, European Centre Vienna) Short orientation: Markus Knell (Austrian Central Bank, Vienna) Markus Knell will provide a short orientation on the issues with respect to the design of both the NDC and the funded statutory pension systems. He will reflect on the choice elements within the NDC systems (such as notional interest rate; choice of life expectancy for annuitization; indexation of pension benefits and other aspects linked with retirement age and automatic stabilisation mechanism). He will mention how the reformed Austrian, French and German systems mimic NDC system. He will also point briefly to issues linked with supplementary statutory funded system. Markus Knell is a research economist at the Austrian National Bank, and has recently worked on the evaluation of pension reforms in Austria and Germany. Before joining the National Bank in 2000 he was assistant professor at the University of Zurich. Speaker 1: Joakim Palme (Director, Institute for Future Studies, Sweden) Joakim Palme will critically review the Swedish pension reforms of the early 1990s (i.e. the adoption of non-financial defined contribution systems and also the mandatory personal pensions); he will also give his views on how these reforms are likely to impact on the pension income generosity that was available in the pre-reformed system. He will speak for about minutes. Joakim Palme is the director of Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm. He is also a professor at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University. From 1999 to 2001, he chaired the Welfare Commission appointed by the Swedish Government. Speaker 2: Agnieszka Chlon-Dominczak (Poland) Agnieszka Chlon-Dominczak will critically review how pension system in Poland has been reformed in the recent past, and what in her view is the likely impact of these reforms on retirement incomes. She will speak for about minutes. Until recently, Agnieszka Chlon-Dominczak has been the Under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Social Policy; previously she was heading a Department for Economic Analyses and Forecasting. She has been one of the lead experts on pension reform issues and has worked as a consultant for the ILO, World Bank and the OECD. 3

4 Speaker 3: Robert Gal (TARKI Social Research Center, Hungary) Robert Gal will critically review how pension system in Hungary has been reformed in the recent past; he will also present his views on the role of the financial sector in the success of the pension reforms in Hungary and other countries alike. He will speak for about minutes. Robert Gal is a senior researcher at the TÁRKI Social Research Institute, Budapest and Associate Professor of Social Policy at the Budapest Corvinus University. Speaker 4: Elsa Fornero (Director, CeRP, Italy) Elsa Fornero will critically review how pension system in Italy has been reformed in the recent past, and what in her view are the common lessons that EU countries can draw from the pension policy experiences in Italian and other EU countries. Elsa Fornero is a Professor of Economics at the University of Turin, Department of Economics. She is also the director of CeRP (Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies), Turin. She was a member of the Italian Government Commission of independent experts for the assessment of the Italian Social Security reform (2000-1) and of a team of evaluators in the area of pension reform at the World Bank (2003). MONDAY 4 December 17:30-18:00 Closing session of the first day: Conclusion of afternoon sessions highlighting key issues covered Speaker: Jouko Kajanoja (Chief of Social Research, Social Insurance Institute of Finland, Helsinki) In his summary of the first day s proceedings, Jouko Kajanoja will outline the following two points: (1) What has been the focus of the discussion in each of the afternoon session during the first day; and (2) What are the main findings of this discussion. He will speak for about minutes. Jouko Kajanoja is the Chief of Social Research, at the Social Insurance Institute of Finland (KELA), which is one of the host institutes for the conference. His main area of work is welfare research, social economics, social capital and social exclusion. Previously, he has held several major positions in the Finnish public administration, including a tenure as the Minister of Labour. 4

5 Tuesday 5 December 9:00-10:30 Debating Session: Reporting and debating national policy options in combating poverty risk among future elderly populations Speakers: Asghar Zaidi (Director Research, European Centre Vienna) 10 mins Olivier Bontout (DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, European Commission, Brussels) 10 mins Commentators: Ed Whitehouse (OECD) Panos Tsakloglou (University of Athens, Greece) Elsa Fornero (CeRP, Italy) Brendan Whelan (ESRI, Ireland) Ludwig Gärtner (Switzerland) Maciej Kucharczyk (Policy Officer, AGE) Chairperson: David Stanton (ISG - SPC) This 'debating' session will aim to pin down pros and cons of selective pension policy options. Firstly, the two speakers will discuss selective national policy options for effectively combating poverty among the future elderly populations. Their suggestions will arise from the discussion on the first day, from the research project that the European Centre researchers have recently undertaken for the European Commission and from recent SPC work on minimum income provision for elderly people. Secondly, the commentators will be invited to express their point of view on these suggestions and also point to other suitable policy options. The commentators may wish to focus on discussing the suitability and implications of these options for their own country. Each commentator will have 5-8 mins for their comment, and they will also be asked to give a short description of who they are and how their own work is relevant to the topic of the conference. 5

6 Tuesday 5 December 11:00-12:30 Roundtable Discussion: What policy challenges in combating pensioner poverty in the EU countries? Chairperson/ lead expert: Mark Pearson (OECD) Panelists: Agnieszka Chlon-Dominczak (Ministry of Social Policy, Poland) Bernd Marin (European Centre Vienna); David Stanton (ISG - SPC) Elaine Fultz (ILO, Budapest) Georg Fischer (European Commission, Brussels) Jos Berghman (Leuven University, Belgium) Tarmo Pukkila (Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland) Michel Riquier, Chair of Expert Group on Social Protection, AGE The panelists of the Roundtable Discussion will respond to a specific list of policy questions posed by Mark Pearson. These questions will arise from issues such as: What lessons can Member States draw from pension policy experiences of other countries? What role and experience of the Open Method of Coordination in the field of pensions? What policy choices towards a fiscally as well as socially sustainable Europe? What role for international organisations in ensuring that good practices are identified and lessons learned are disseminated? What future research agenda to address the issue of how pension policy affects poverty risk of pensioners? Each panelist will be requested to not take more than 5 minutes for their response in the first instance; however they will be encouraged by the chairperson to enter in the debate again at a later time in the discussion. 6

7 Speakers responsibilities: Given tight schedule, all speakers will be requested to strictly follow the time allotted for their presentation by the chairperson. Speakers are requested to send their slides to Ms. Andrea Hovenier ( at the latest by 29 th November. We will place e-files for speakers presentation on the computer; however speakers are also requested to bring their presentation on a flash disk. If speakers wish to distribute any handout, they should also inform the secretariat by 29 th November for any copying necessary for the purpose. If a speaker is unable to speak on the topic suggested, he/she is requested to nominate a suitable alternative expert as early as possible. Last but not least, all speakers will be requested to focus on the pension policy issues linked with retirement incomes and pensioner poverty, despite the fact that the pension policy issues linked with the fiscal sustainability concerns may have been the overriding reasons behind many recent pension reforms. Chairpersons responsibilities: Chairpersons will enforce that all sessions start and end promptly as indicated in the conference programme (please refer to the latest version of the programme for this purpose; dated 22 nd November). Chairpersons will manage all discussion and comments from the floor, and will ask each speaker to introduce himself/herself (even when they are called with their first names). Chairpersons will inform the Conference Secretariat if they require any assistance for their work, preferably much in advance of the start of the session. 7