EU pension hypocracy

[Big_Spark]

Freddie, I like the theory, unfortunatley it would not work in practise.

David, The EU has a legal obligation to offer those it employs a pension. It is not the EU that is to blame for Britons being made to work longer, they are simply stating that it will be necessary, however they lay the blame squarely where it should be..The British Government.

 

[kendor]

Insurance companies offering pensions have to take a proportion of blame, i feel they have all jumped on the bandwagon blaming others for poor returns in investment but if they have struggled so badly how come we havn't heard of a single insurance company having gone tits up?
I bet the MD's of these companies havn't had to take pay cuts, more like pay rises!
same with the mortgage endowment fiasco i have a deep feeling that it wasn't as bad as made out and a certain amount of book juggling went on to hide the profits made.

 

[Freddie]

Freddie, I like the theory, unfortunatley it would not work in practise.

David, The EU has a legal obligation to offer those it employs a pension. It is not the EU that is to blame for Britons being made to work longer, they are simply stating that it will be necessary, however they lay the blame squarely where it should be..The British Government.

No you misunderstand me, the pension thing is actually fact, but the reason we have to work longer is because like me being 46 i can remember all through my school life being at school with thousands of kids my age, meaning post war baby boomers. We are all going to retire at more or less the same age and there is no where near as many kids around and being born now to pay towards our retirement.

 

[Big_Spark]

Kendor has a valid point, however had past Governments introduced proper and stringent regulations of the industry 30 years ago then this crisis over private pensions would not be here now.

The fact is that successive British Governments allowed the industry to regulate itself, and trusted it to do this!! That is like asking a gang of sharks not to eat the fish they share the tank with!!

As with most regulation of industries in this country, it is all bull and bluster and no real substance, and the poor mugs that end up paying for this are you and me...

 

[david and julie]

Yes kendor is right the insurance companies do seem to be taking the Mickey and yet the Gov keeps telling us to give them more! It would appear though insurance companies may not be involved with the EU pensions.

To acquire pension rights officials currently pay a compulsory contribution of 9.25% of their gross basic salary. This is one third of the actuarial amount required to cover pension payments. This is a kind of virtual accounting, as these contributions are not set aside or invested in any way for future pay-out as pensions. In point of fact salaries are simply reduced each month by 9.25%, which shrinks the expenditure of the EU institutions. At the same time pension payments, just like salaries, are paid out of the current EU budget.

To me it says they just pay as they go along and make no provision for future costs.
Has anyone ever heard of or any idea what this is?

This is a kind of virtual accounting,

Engineer what does this mean and what legal obligations would there be? I don't know about in EU but I thought it was optional in the UK for employers to offer pension schemes to employees.

David, The EU has a legal obligation to offer those it employs a pension.

 

[WoodYouLike]

You are not comparing like with like here, you clearly say your state and company pension combined would give you 70%. The EU staff are getting this just from their job and will get their state pension on top of it..

D&J if you look at the beginning of the first article you've qouted it states:

The employer must also be a 'substitute state'

Like other international organisations the EU institutions have a special responsibility as employers, because their staff do not have a right to the social benefits in the host country that they would have in their country of origin (e.g. child allowances). Therefore the EU institutions have a dual responsibility to their staff: they must be both an employer and a 'substitute state',

This means that they (EU employees) don't build up their state-pension in their country of origin while they are EU employees and this then results in the 70% of final salary (part 'alternative' EU-state pension, part 'company' pension) = SAME as I would have gotten.

Over to you

 

[david and julie]

The employer must also be a 'substitute state'
Like other international organisations the EU institutions have a special responsibility as employers, because their staff do not have a right to the social benefits in the host country that they would have in their country of origin (e.g. child allowances). Therefore the EU institutions have a dual responsibility to their staff: they must be both an employer and a 'substitute state',

This means that they (EU employees) don't build up their state-pension in their country of origin while they are EU employees and this then results in the 70% of final salary (part 'alternative' EU-state pension, part 'company' pension) = SAME as I would have gotten.

Ok, over to me. I believe you are misinterpreting the above, It is referring to social benefits you would not get in the host country because you have not paid into their system. Examples would be family allowance, free glasses, prescriptions, healthcare etc. That is why the EU becomes a substitute state, because they assume this role and pay you extra to cover your additional costs or losses. It doesn't mean your pension at home, you are still working so are not of pensionable age so would not be in receipt of a state pension at home anyway, so you are not losing anything. If I was working abroad like this for extended periods I would pay the voluntary stamp in the UK, this is what the voluntary contribution is for.
Substitute state is only whilst you are employed by them abroad and state pension at home is not a social benefit in this context.
Here is some info about voluntary contributions which will explain better than me.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/international/sa29/insurance_11.asp

 

[confidentincompetent]

I cant see the lazy generations of today being able to support me when I retire. Gordon aint helping either stealthing billions of tax which would oterwise go towards my stakeholder (((stakeholder )))

 

[kendor]

Funnily enough during the "doom and gloom" period my company pension fund actually was doing so well that the inland revenue stepped in and forced the administrators to reduce the amount of contributions that we could pay in. from 7.5% to 5% at that time. not that it would make a lot of difference anyway as i was on a final salary scheme.