Finnish retirement age stays the same; government backs down

[Tiriol]

It was mentioned earlier in this thread that the Finnish government has been planning to raise the age limit of retirement from 63 years to 65 years. This plan, however, has now been withdrawn, as reported by YLE News.

Government Surrenders in Retirement Age Row
published today 08:38 AM, updated today 03:17 PM

The government has surrendered in the face of fierce opposition to its plans to raise the minimum retirement age. Instead it has launched talks with labour market representatives to find other ways of extending the average working career by three years.

Late-night talks on Tuesday between the government and unions made it clear that unions would not swallow the higher retirement age without a fight. The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) had refused to even discuss the proposal and demanded that the government take the proposal off the table.

Two weeks ago, the government unilaterally announced -- to the unions' surprise -- its intention to raise the general minimum age of retirement from 63 to 65. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen has insisted that the move was necessary to mitigate the financial effects of a retirement boom, but also consistently said that they had to find ways of getting young people into the labour force earlier.

Unions were not only angry at the announcement, but were irritated at being left out of the decision-making process.

Talks re-started Wednesday morning from a clean slate - the government has backed down from its plans, and unions are more willing to discuss other means to the same end.

YLE

The political opposition is still going to issue an interpellation over the retirement age question, according to the news.

This news item raises mixed feelings in me: on the other hand, the retirement age system (along with the rest of the retirement system) has to be re-thought and fixed soon, or we will have a veritable catastrophe at our hands sooner or later. On the other hand, maybe now the government learns to actually MARKET and advertise their proposals and ideas, not simply hope that era of President Kekkonen will magically return and no opposition dares to raise its voice. It is too bad, though, that this lesson may come at the expense of a badly needed reform.