• Royal Bolsius

  Political Correspondent

GroenLinks-PvdA and SP want to continue the temporary arrangement that allows people with demanding professions to retire early. The early retirement scheme (RVU) expires next year and there is no successor yet.

The program provides a tax break for employers to pay early retirement benefits. Today, GroenLinks-PvdA and SP are submitting a proposal to continue and expand this tax break.

According to the petitioners, the difference in life expectancy clearly shows that there is a very big difference between people who work in heavy jobs and those who do not. “People who have a lot of money and who often have a university education live nine years longer than people on the other side. We want everyone to reach the finish line in good health,” says Luc Stoltens, a member of parliament for the GroenLinks-PvdA party.

That’s why police unions will take action at football matches next weekend, just like last weekend. Action is being prepared for early September in the cleaning, public transport and metals sectors.

Although the social partners must make agreements with each other, GL-PvdA and SP are first looking to the cabinet for a tax exemption. “We will discuss this together in politics,” says Stoltens. “This tax should be abolished, the early termination penalty should be abolished, and then employers and employees can see who is eligible and how much money they receive.”

Discussions between social partners are about more than just early retirement. They are also about prevention and the possibilities of allowing older employees to do less demanding work. A balance must be found in this.

“On the one hand, there are suitable solutions for employees who have hard work and who have not yet reached the finish line, but on the other hand, there is also the fight against the new early retirement culture, as was the case in the past with early retirement,” says a spokesman for the employers’ organisation VNO-NCW.

Stoltens also believes it should be a broader package, but the ability to retire early remains an important part anyway. “The state pension age keeps rising and we think that makes sense, because we are getting older together, but we want it to be important that everyone gets to the finish line healthy and that doesn’t seem to work otherwise,” he says.

It seems unlikely that the scheme will be expanded. But it is certainly possible that it will still exist after 2025. “We would like to see the early retirement system extended to people with difficult professions, within the available fiscal space and in conjunction with other measures,” says Agnes Joseph, of the ruling NSC party. She also believes that this is the role of the cabinet first.

Henk Vermeer (BBB) ​​also believes that the order should remain. He also says that the cabinet has the final say.

The other coalition parties have not yet assessed the situation. No agreements have been reached on this or other pension issues in the main framework agreement, which makes it a free issue. The formation made it clear that pensions are a sensitive issue within the coalition.

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor says the aim is to find solutions quickly: “It is important that people can reach retirement in good health, which is currently difficult in some professions.”

The current scheme costs around €70 million a year – a relatively small amount in the social welfare budget. But the message Finance Minister Heinen sent during the budget discussions was that there was no more money left. It will become clear in the coming weeks whether the government will allocate money for this.

People approaching retirement can’t really wait for it, says Stoltens: “They don’t want to hear a week in advance whether this scheme is going away or not.”