Several pension specialists have denounced this Tuesday the short-term nature that, in their opinion, has dominated the debate on the future of the system and have urged to face its sustainability with a long-term perspective.

In a conference promoted by Funcas and the Association of Journalists of Economic Information (APIE), the professor of Sociology at UNED and researcher at Funcas, Elisa Chuliá, stated that the 2023 pension reform has implied a “paradigm shift” compared to previous modifications.

As she explained, while previous reforms had focused mainly on curbing the increase in spending, the latest revision has focused on reinforcing the system’s income.

Chuliá has described this reform as a “lost opportunity” and has warned that some of the approved measures will be “very difficult to reverse,” as they could come to be seen by citizens as consolidated rights.

At the same time, she lamented that the discussion on pensions has hardly any visibility in the public sphere, despite its relevance for the coming decades.

On the other hand, the professor at the University of Valencia and member of the Institute of Spanish Actuaries, Enrique Devesa, has described the 2021-2023 reform as a “flight forward” and has stressed the urgency of introducing structural changes that ensure the future viability of the system.

In his opinion, the approved measures have increased income, but have not sufficiently corrected the spending dynamics. Furthermore, he emphasized that the system has an “structural” problem and warned that “it will not be able to continue like this.”

For his part, the researcher at the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), Ignacio Fernández-Huertas, has remarked that any modification must be framed within a “realistic and credible” fiscal strategy that preserves the sustainability of all public administrations.

Immigration as limited support in the face of aging

Another focus of the conference was the analysis of the weight of immigration in the sustainability of the pension system.

Fernández-Huertas has argued that migratory flows contribute positively to economic growth and public finances, and recalled that AIReF has been forced to revise its migratory projections upwards in recent years due to the arrival of more foreign population than initially expected.

However, he has clarified that the organization’s forecasts already take into account that these immigrants also age, retire, and will receive benefits in the future. According to him, even with current migratory flows, estimates point to a decrease in the working-age population from the mid-2030s.

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