The Social Security Social Dialogue Table reaches an agreement to make retirement more flexible, to better involve mutual insurance companies in health treatment and to regulate arduous professions

Pedro Sánchez appears before the media to take stock of the political course (Pool Moncloa /Borja Puig de la Bellacasa)

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, has announced a new agreement of the Social Security and Pensions Social Dialogue Table. The issues it has been working on in recent months are related to such important matters as a new framework for partial retirement and active retirement; the development of which has been agreed in the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) in relation to the involvement of the Social Security's collaborating mutual insurance companies in Temporary Disability (TI); and the procedure for establishing coefficients to reduce the retirement age for particularly arduous or dangerous occupations.

The agreement has been signed by the Government, the employers' organisations CEOE and CEPYME and the trade unions CCOO and UGT.

The Minister for Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, explains the terms of the agreement | Pool Moncloa

The Minister for Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, said that "the agreement reached today is of the utmost importance for today's and tomorrow's pensioners and for the challenges of our labour market, as it puts an end to the dichotomy between worker and pensioner and adapts to the needs of each person". The Secretary of State for Social Security and Pensions, Borja Suárez, who chaired the Committee, thanked the social partners for their hard work and willingness to reach an agreement during these months in order to achieve this consensus and "their ability to discuss improvements to the proposals that we have been putting forward, which is the basis for the success of these measures and the guarantee of their validity in the medium and long term".

"Dialogue, listening and consensus is the only way for this Ministry to proceed and the only formula for the agreed reforms to be lasting and to have a truly beneficial and transformative effect on society," Saiz said.

Improving the transition from work to retirement

The Government and the social partners have reached a point of understanding on the progress made in regulating the modalities of work and pension compatibility, in particular with regard to active retirement and partial retirement.

The aim of these measures is to enable workers to make a more progressive and flexible exit from the labour market, in line with our neighbouring countries, more adapted to the conditions and situations of each worker.

With regard to active retirement, the requirement of having a full career of contributions is eliminated, which facilitates access and has a special impact from a gender perspective. This type of retirement will be compatible with the incentives for delay and its compatibility will be fixed according to the time of delay (so that each year of delay in active retirement will increase the % to be applied to the receipt of the pension).

With regard to the changes in the regulation for partial retirement, the possibility of early retirement is extended from 2 to 3 years, with limits on the reduction of working hours. In addition, the conditions for relief workers are improved: they will have to be hired on a permanent and full-time basis in a non-replaceable post.

With regard to the special regulation of early partial retirement for workers in the manufacturing industry, the current framework is to be extended up to and including 2029. This extension includes some adjustments to improve the conditions of relief workers and the design of a more balanced and flexible regulation for the company in terms of the organisation of the relief worker's and pensioner's working hours.

Delayed retirement is also improved with the possibility of receiving an additional incentive for every six months of delay from the second year onwards and not only every twelve months.

These measures complete the process of reforms initiated in 2021 that sought to bring the effective retirement age closer to the legal age and established a new range of retirement options for workers.

Temporary disability

A point of agreement has also been reached in the negotiation on the development of what has been agreed in the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC), in relation to the involvement of the Mutual Insurance Companies in temporary disability, when collaborating with the Public Health Services, in carrying out diagnostic tests in pathologies resulting from trauma, although this will always be subject to the voluntary nature and consent of the citizens.

In addition, the social partners and the Government have made progress in opening a working line that allows for the monitoring of temporary disability indicators, in accordance with the provisions of the AENC, with the creation of an oversight commission to monitor and control these agreements and the analysis of the evolution of Temporary Disability.

"Mutual insurance companies are part of the public system and with this new framework we are making better use of their resources in order to recover workers' health, guarantee more specialised care and shorter waiting times for treatment, and to decongest the public health system," said the minister.

Coefficients for reducing the retirement age

Along the lines of establishing more flexible regulations depending on the circumstances of each occupation or worker, another of the aspects on which progress has been made is the procedure for establishing coefficients to reduce the retirement age for particularly arduous or dangerous occupations.

This new regulation is fundamentally based on determining the objective circumstances that make it possible to establish reduction coefficients to lower the retirement age, such as: the incidence, persistence and duration of medical leave, as well as declarations of permanent disability and death.

Improvements for permanent and discontinuous workers

The agreement includes improvements in the conditions of access to retirement for permanent and discontinuous workers who recover the multiplier coefficient of 1.5 that was applied when calculating the qualifying period for access to retirement, permanent disability and death and survival pensions.

Non official translation