The Commission for the Sustainability of Social Security today defended a broad debate on the pension system, based on the definitive version of the Green Paper, reiterating that the final document will be handed over to the new government.
In a press release, the commission regrets the publication in the media of the provisional version of the Green Paper for the Sustainability of Social Security, reported by Expresso, stressing that “there must be a broad debate in society on these issues, based on the contributions made” by the commission’s work, “but in its definitive version and respecting the terms under which the commission was created”.
The committee of experts was set up in September 2022 by the previous government and, on March 28, it delivered a preliminary version of the Green Paper for the Sustainability of the Social Security System and its technical notes to the then Minister of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho, and to the Secretary of State for Social Security, Gabriel Bastos.
“On the assumption that these documents were part of the transition portfolio for the current government, this committee maintains its intention to hand over the final version of the Green Paper and Technical Notes to the person responsible for this portfolio in the XXIV Constitutional Government [Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho],” the committee of experts states.
According to the newspaper Expresso, the commission believes that the rules for automatically adjusting the retirement age to changes in average life expectancy should also apply to early retirement, which has already been criticized by the UGT.
The committee proposes ending the early pension for long-term unemployment, which is possible from the age of 57 after unemployment benefit has run out.
The committee is made up of experts Ana Fernandes, Amílcar Moreira, Armindo Silva, Manuel Caldeira Cabral, Susana Peralta and Vítor Junqueira.
UGT challenges preliminary proposal by the Commission for the Sustainability of Social Security
