The European Parliament noted that the voluntary pension fund for Members had an actuarial deficit of by EUR 30 917 229 as at 31 December 2007. However, the deficit has risen to €120 million by the end of 2008 following the financial instability in the markets. The European Parliament has guaranteed that all members of the voluntary supplementary pension scheme will receive their full entitlements despite the fund deficit.
The scheme had 1113 members, by spring 2008, including 478 active MEPs, 493 pensioners and 142 deferred members. The MEPs pay €1194 a month into the supplementary scheme and Parliament contributes with €2388. Hence, taxpayers already pay part of this pension which comes on top of national pension. Moreover, the members of the fund have been paying their one-third contribution from the general expenditure allowance rather from their salary.
The Bureau has recognized that the European Parliament has the legal obligation to guarantee the supplemental pension rights of current fund members. It approved measures to increase the fund’s liquidity in order to avoid the need for the Parliament to allocate extra money to the fund meaning using taxpayer’s money.
The Bureau has increased the retirement age for all members from 60 to 63, scrapped the option of taking out 25% of acquired rights in a lump sum and scrapped the option of early retirement at 50 on a reduced pension. However, such decision is not free from being challenged by members of the fund since according to the Members of the European Parliament Statute “Acquired rights and future entitlements will be maintained in full.”
Bruno Waterfield reports in The Daily Telegraph: "Dozens of MEPs, including Britons, are taking legal action to try to block reforms of their second pensions which are intended to cut the controversial scheme's cost to Europe's taxpayers." Read the article here.
