“The energy crisis is currently covering up structural issues,” said Oberbank general director Franz Gasselsberger yesterday at a joint press conference with Gregor Pilgram, CEO of Generali Versicherung Österreich AG, in Vienna.
One of these issues is that pensions in Austria will soon no longer be financeable with the pay-as-you-go system alone. According to Gasselsberger, this system is subsidized annually with 25 billion euros from the budget. The budget shortages would force the politicians to “make long-term adjustments to the benefits here”, in other words: the current level of pensions cannot be maintained in the long term.
With a “genuine pension reform” it is not enough to extend working life, according to the Oberbank boss. Company and private provisions are necessary, but above all one would have to invest parts of the statutory pension insurance on the capital market in order to achieve higher returns. This is the case, for example, in Sweden and Denmark.
From the daily customer advice one knows that the companies see a need for action here and want to offer their employees company pension schemes. The tax allowance for securing the future has been around 300 euros per year for decades. “An absolute must” would be an increase to 1200 euros.
In the case of private provision, Gasselsberger sees a problem with affordability. “We finally need to relieve the labor factor by reducing the tax burden.” This is the only way to create the financial scope for private provision, said Gasselsberger. (hn)
Source: Nachrichten
