The PCP’s proposal, which is the subject of today’s debate, represents an opportunity – one that the majority supporting the Government must not squander – to restore some fairness for pensioners facing a galloping and drastically rising cost of living.
When more than half of all pensioners receive less than 500 euros, and the average monthly pension stood at less than 600 euros in April – or 353 euros for survivors’ pensions – the response to the social emergency posed by the cost of the essential food basket, at 260 euros, can only be a mid-term increase in pensions for all.
On the footsteps of other significant contributions towards improving pensions – including the end of pension cuts between 2017 and 2021 and a series of exceptional increases – what we are discussing today as part of yet another initiative by the PCP is a mid-term increase of at least 50 euros for all pensioners.
This is an increase which, first and foremost, will have a significant positive impact on those receiving the lowest pensions; and which will pave the way for a better adjustment in 2027, as this adjustment will be based on the new figure calculated using the proposed mid-term increase
In other words, the draft resolution tabled by the PCP paves the way for real improvements in people’s lives – provided the majority so wishes.
It is also a proposal that should not be confused with either the demagoguery or the opportunistic propaganda put forward by the Government in autumn, involving the allocation of a “supplement” to pensioners “if budgetary execution so allows”, because, first and foremost, other values come first for the Government.
The PCP has no doubts regarding the impact of its proposal – estimated at less than one billion euros, which is, after all, half of what the reduction in corporate tax to 17 % from which large economic groups benefit, will cost the State Budget; in other words, those who can afford it most.
Even from the strict perspective of the sustainability of the Social Security system, there is no doubt that this measure is clearly manageable, given the very comfortable budget surpluses over recent years and the fact that, in 2025, the surplus is set to exceed 6.672 billion euros.
Moreover, the task of progressively improving conditions for pensioners is inseparable from the need to strengthen the funding of the public and solidarity-based Social Security system, at the outset with the recovery of billions in outstanding debts, but also by guaranteeing employment with rights and a general valorisation of wages.
Here too, we stand apart from other proposals under discussion, which shy away from any concrete commitment – in terms of figures and timetables, as the PCP does – and, above all, fail to factor into the adjustments for the coming years the mid-term increase that is now urgently required and only fair.
