The 2022 reform aimed at promoting employment pension plans is a “failure.” This is how the president of Inverco responsible for the collective investment associationÁngel Martínez-Aldama when considering that The results are at the moment very far from the objectives committed by the Government to Brusselsboth in number of employees and in volume of assets managed.
During his speech on the day ‘The future of Pensions in Spain – Challenges and Solutions’ organized by the Institute of Higher Studies and the Cobas ChairMartínez-Aldama recalled that the plan promoted by the then Minister Escrivá expected to reach eleven million workers in the second pillar in 2030but that “five years from now, in the year 2025, we are below three million“.
Regarding the managed assets, he has indicated that, fIn view of the goal of representing 30% of GDP by the end of this decade, currently “we are barely reaching 3%.”
An overly dependent system
The head of the collective investment association has stressed that the Spanish pension system continues “relying almost exclusively on the public pillar”, which concentrates 98% of the benefits compared to complementary systems.
“In Spain we do not have three pillars, we only have one, and I think that is important to know where we are and where we want to go,” he stated to state that, in relation to the 2022 reform, there has only been one employment plan that has been established.
Martínez-Aldama has brought up that pension spending public already amounts to about 190,000 million eurosaccording to 2024 data, to which 22,000 million in passive classes are added, and which 30% of these benefits are financed with public debt, including extraordinary payments. “Of every ten euros paid in public pension, seven are paid with contributions and three with public debt that is issued each year,” he said.
Encourage contributions
The president of Inverco, as he has been repeatedly criticizing, has described “regressive” the fiscal measures of recent years, such as the reduction of contribution limit to individual plans from 8,000 to 1,500 euros per year. “Big mistake,” he assessed, because it has assumed that “in the last four years, 10,000 million euros have not gone to retirement savings.”
Likewise, it has focused on the lack of public sector involvement in the development of the second pillar, remembering that the Administration itself “has not made contributions to its employment plan since 2010”. “If you want to develop the second pillar in the private sector, you start setting an example.”he stated in reference to the State.
Regarding European initiatives, Martínez-Aldama has positively valued the European Commission’s projects on savings and pensions, such as the ‘Pension Tracking System’, the ‘Pension Dashboard’ and ‘Autoenrollment’, and has asked along these lines that Spain take advantage of the “tailwinds” of the community agenda.
Finally, he has insisted on the need to promote financial education to encourage private savings. “Without financial education we cannot make any informed decision about our future,” he claimed, proposing that this training be mandatory in schools and universities.
