The cabinet hopes the House will vote on the bill before Christmas. The House is expected to complete the legislative process for it today, but whether that will be successful is uncertain. Debates on the law often petered out and sometimes had to be spread over several days. Recently, the House has focused on the highly technical “article-by-article treatment,” but politically the House is still sharply divided.
Much of the opposition is firmly against the arrival of the new system. PVV, SP and Member of Parliament Pieter Omtzigt are the staunchest opponents. The coalition supports the law, which stems from a previously concluded pension agreement between employers’ organizations and trade unions. PvdA and GroenLinks have supported this agreement, but still have doubts about the effect of the law. Among other things, they ask that more people accrue their pensions. Schouten will need their support to get the bill through the Senate.
Also in view of the Senate, the Cabinet hopes that the House will soon give the go-ahead. A new Senate will be elected in May and the coalition is expected to lose seats. As a result, the bill could fail in the Senate. Implementation has already been delayed.
Future proof
The new pension system needs to be more future-proof, much more flexible and, according to the proponents, better suited to the labor market. There will be individual pension funds that will move more with the stock market. In times of economic prosperity, more pensions can be paid more quickly and cuts will be made more quickly in times of economic headwinds. The accrual method is changing, which carries risks, and the House is concerned about the transition of pension funds to the new system. Critics fear an unfair redistribution of the approximately 1.5 trillion euros of pension assets, which could lead to lawsuits.
Accounting firm BDO also said this week it fears an overload of the legal system. A transition to the new system before the January 1, 2027 deadline is not feasible for many funds, according to research by BDO. De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), on the other hand, brought good news about the new system: pensioners and employees ‘generally’ receive more pensions under the new system than under the old one. DNB has calculated thousands of scenarios. However, the new system carries more risks, the central bank stressed in the House on Wednesday.