New Pension Law: Future Pensions Act Adopted After 15 Years of Discussion by Dutch Senate

The new pension law, the Future Pensions Act, is a fact. In a few years’ time, all working people who save or have saved for their pension through their employer will receive a new scheme. Things will also change for the self-employed who save for a pension.

After a long discussion in the Senate about the constitutionality of the new pension law, the senators finally got around to voting late tonight: 46 members voted for the law, 27 voted against.

Government parties VVD, CDA, D66 and CU and opposition parties PvdA, GroenLinks and SGP voted in favour. Opposition parties SP, PVV, PvdD, 50Plus, the Fractions Nanninga, Otten and Frentrop, FvD and OSF voted against.

Minister Carola Schouten (Pensions) calls it “an important step” that the law has now been adopted after 15 years of discussion. “With this law we ensure that our pension remains properly arranged,” she says. According to her, this applies to people who have already retired as well as to people who are still working.

In the morning there was a demonstration in front of the Senate led by SP leader Lilian Marijnissen.

Inside, opponents of the law filed a new last-minute objection. According to three professors, the law should have been voted on by a two-thirds majority. They pointed to a provision in the Constitution that says that this must be done when voting on the income of MPs.

For that reason, the Otten Party submitted a motion of no confidence against Minister Schouten, which had no chance beforehand. But he insisted that the Constitution does not apply to the pension law.

Schouten was supported by a majority of the senators. They believe that the new pension law does not regulate the amount of the pension of MPs and former MPs. That should be discussed in the coming months, they said. And only then does the Constitution apply. The votes could therefore proceed as planned.

The transition to the new system will be quite a job:

According to the proponents, the new pension system is more favorable to people with flexible jobs and shorter contracts. It is also intended that it will work out more fairly for younger generations because they do not have to pay for the higher benefits of older generations. On the other hand, there is more risk and no hard guarantees about the final payment.

The self-employed are allowed to save more tax-free for their pension in the new system. And pension funds are allowed to experiment with the participation of these self-employed persons in their employee pension funds.

In the coming months it will be up to the pension funds to inform all their pension participants of the steps they are going to take now and how they want to transfer the old pension rights to the new system. That will take years.

Minister Schouten can imagine that many people are concerned about the new system. She emphasizes that citizens will be well informed about the changes.