Alfred Sant (S&D). – Madam President, the questions of sustainability and adequacy that face basic pension systems need first to be faced and solved on a national basis before they can realistically be dealt with on a European basis.

In my view such solutions cannot be grounded only on increasing the work span in citizensʼ lives and on a rise in contributions, nor should they be reduced to a further privatisation of parts of the pension system. The latter should be regarded as an integral part of the public commitment within the state budget, with the highest priority being given to the most vulnerable.

Indeed, this is part of the wider European heritage on the social front, shared by the right and the left, from Bismarck to Willy Brandt. It should not be abandoned.

Balance in state budgets should fully include, on the expenditure side, the underwriting of shortfalls between outgoings and income over basic pension payments and revenues. This would necessarily entail a radical revision of national budgetary strategies by way of spending priorities, implying a greater emphasis on investment and on modernisation of social welfare delivery, plus a re-engineering of taxation.