Pensioners’ organisations are emerging from hibernation now that the European Court of Justice has issued a preliminary opinion in favour of Malta’s pensioners whose service (occupational/workplace/second pillar) pension has been partly deducted from their contributory Malta Social Security pension.
In 2006 and 2007, two members of our National Association of Service Pensioners (nasp.malta@gmail.com) complained to the European Parliament that the government was reducing their Maltese Social Security pension because they had a British occupational pension, and the EU Commission invoked an infringement procedure against Malta.
The NASP council then met key EU Commission officials who were briefed by our secretary, Publius Grech, an expert on this 30-year-plus service pension ‘anomaly’, also negatively affecting service pensioners who had always worked in Malta. Had the NASP not taken the trouble to attend this crucial Brussels meeting, I believe the infringement procedure against Malta would almost certainly have been dropped.
A recent Times of Malta editorial reminded us us that one of the responses from the finance ministry was to claim that even with these deductions, service pensioners were better off than those with only one pension, suggesting it was socially unjust to have worked for two pensions. Would the ministry also suggest, say, that owning more than one property is socially unjust when others own none?
The editorial also questioned how much the European Court’s decision might cost the Maltese taxpayer. When the lower-salaried taxpayer is paying for the circa €40 million earned by the higher-salaried via reduced income tax, why should mature citizens be defrauded of their contributory Social Security pension to prop up the welfare state of a country boasting about its buoyant economy? Furthermore, last year, the Contributions Fund was over €53 million in the black, and is estimated to show €78 million surplus for this year, and a further €87 million in 2016.
Having said all that, the NASP’s advice to its members is to await the European Court’s final judgment and not to count chickens before they’re hatched.