The Government had planned that this spring the public promotion pension macroplan promoted by the ministry of José Luis Escrivá would be operational, but now they are delaying its activation until at least September, since there are still procedures to be done.
It is an employment pension plan, that is, an instrument for workers to accumulate complementary savings for their retirement -which will be added to their public pension at the time of retirement- and to which the companies.
“We hope it will be operational in the spring,” Escrivá himself said at the end of last year. But in practice, for the fund to be active and workers to be able to sign up, especially from SMEs, which are the ones that have the least these systems and for which it is directed, it will be necessary to wait a few more months: five, according to the Executive, and up to eight, according to Inverco, the employers’ association of collective investment institutions.
Sources from the Ministry of Social Security explain to EL MUNDO that they are completing three elements that they hope to have ready this summer. The first of these is the reform of the Regulation of pension plans and funds, in force since 2004, and which has “very little” left, with which they trust that “in weeks it will be approved.”
Secondly, they are finalizing the specifications for the public tender to choose the fund managers that will be in charge of investing the accumulated savings in the funds and trying to obtain a return -since even though the fund is publicly promoted and supervised , its management will be private. The sector expected the tender to be launched in December 2023, but the publication has not yet taken place. “The specifications are being finished and in a very short period of time it is expected to bid, so that the process is concluded in the summer months,” said the same sources.
Finally, the Executive is finalizing the common digital platform, an element that in practice is not necessary for the operation of public promotion funds, but that “it is desirable that it be there as soon as possible, because it is very important for transparency and ease in negotiations”, they point out, and it is also scheduled to work in the summer. The operation could be underway “as soon as the first two procedures are completed”, that is, “at the end of the summer”, they conclude.
“Once the specifications are approved, after having been submitted to a Public Hearing or not, a period of around 20 days or a month will open. Afterwards, the Ministry will make its selection and then a long process will come, of contracting , and that it can take from four to seven months, so we believe that by the end of the year it could be awarded to managers and depositaries”, Ángel Martínez Aldama, president of Inverco, tells this outlet, who is not confident that the fund is working as well soon.
The Government’s objective is to provide workers – salaried, self-employed and public employees – with access to employment pension plans that until now have only been present in large companies, so that they act as “a cheap savings product, aimed at allowing citizens supplement their pensions and have a deferred salary”. The managers and custodians of the plans are chosen through a public tender, thus guaranteeing competition and that the commissions are low, and the investment can only be made “in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries, taking into consideration the profitability, risk and impact social of it”.
To promote the use of these plans, the Ministry has empowered collective bargaining to agree in sectoral agreements the activation of this type of employment plan, so that it is extended to companies in the sector. This means that if the employers and the majority unions of a sector agree to promote an employment pension plan, they will be able to use the Government pension plan when it is operational, so that companies in that sector offer it to their workers.
To date, construction has been the first sector in which the promotion of these plans has already been agreed, but since the public fund is not yet operational, they have managed it on their own. As explained to this medium by Pedro Fernández-Alen, president of the National Construction Confederation (CNC, the employers’ association), next week they will publish the regulations and the following week, the managers will be chosen, so that in a month it could be in operation . “From then on, companies in the sector will contribute 1% of the salary corresponding to 2022 and another 1% for this year, which acts as deferred salary. Workers will also be able to contribute whatever they want from their savings,” he points out.
In their case, the pension fund will be privately promoted and, for the moment, they do not know if in the future they will change to the publicly promoted one or continue with it.
The promotion of employment pension plans -those that are articulated within the company, which constitute what is called the ‘second pillar’- is done at the cost of penalizing individual pension plans that, according to the Government, are distributed mainly by the banking sector and with high commissions. For this reason, the Government cut the maximum contribution allowed for individual plans in 2021 from 8,000 to 2,000 euros and, in 2022, they cut it to 1,500 euros, the level at which it continues now.
This means that an employee of a company that does not offer employment plans can only save 1,500 euros a year in a private pension plan, without having the possibility of contributing to a company one, which in practice makes it difficult to prepare for retirement.
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