Pensions: does the government want to take control of contributions?

Simple pipe change or real threat to pension money? In any case, the measure is worrisome and is rarely unanimously challenged by unions and employers’ organizations. Specifically, it is about entrusting Ursaff with the collection of social security contributions, while this mission is now in charge of Agirc-Arrco, the complementary pension funds for private sector employees.

Firstly, the social partners fear the risk of an accident at work. “This project could generate errors and bugs, to the detriment of the insured, who could lose part of their pension rights,” explains a senior union leader. Then and above all, employers and unions fear that the State will seize part of their money and use it for purposes other than pensions. Especially since Agirc-Arrco has significant reserves: according to the latest figures, they amounted to almost 68 billion euros at the end of 2021. “The Government, if necessary, could very well decide to return us only 120 billion of the 130 billion euros of annual collection and tell us: for the rest, you just have to dip into your reserves”, sums up a union leader FO.

Real or fake threat?

“This is all fantasy,” replies Yann-Gaël Amghar, director of Urssaf. The organization already collects most of the social security contributions: sickness or even basic retirement. According to him, there is no risk of error in the calculation of pensions. Nor is there any threat to Agirc-Arrco’s reserves. According to him, this project has a single objective: to simplify the life of companies, which will suddenly have a single interlocutor, and to make collection with the key more efficient, saving nearly 700 million euros per year.

On the set of BFM Business he returned to this project: “We are in the accumulation of false news. Unifying the collection is a movement started decades ago. In the last 5 years we have taken over 12 collections”.

Faced with these concerns and so that this debate does not contaminate the consultation on the pension reform, the government has decided, however, to take a step. It postponed the entry into force of the measure by one year, to January 1, 2024 instead of 2023. The social security financing bill, in which this measure appears, is about to be definitively adopted and the social partners they have practically no hope of obtaining a total cancellation of this measure.