PRESS RELEASE
This Friday, 4 November, the Estonian Cooperation Assembly and Ministry of the Interior invite all interested parties to attend the Pension 2050 vision conference. The conference takes place in Tallinn University from 10:00 to 17:00 and aims to find solutions on how people could potentially work to old age, continually enhance their knowledge and skills, and cope with retirement in the future.
“By holding the conference, we will continue the public debate on the “new old age” and help unveil possible solutions for ensuring the sustainability of the pension system,“ Liisi Uder, Head of Cooperation Assembly programme Pension 2050, explains.
During the first half of the day we will introduce the vision of the Ministry of the Interior on ensuring the sustainability of the national retirement pension system, the experience of other countries and lessons learned from pension system reform. “Both Sweden and the United Kingdom, when raising the pensionable age, have linked it to life expectancy. Estonia plans to do the same in the future,” Uder explains. “Sweden has a system in place whereby pension system assets and obligations are balanced: the pension payments balance and working people’s pension accounts balance must correspond to pension assets. If they go out of balance, the pension is then reduced. In the case of the United Kingdom, their recently implemented system is interesting insofar as a retired person can decide whether he/she wishes to take out a pension in instalments over many years or all at once. The implementation of such a system that increases personal responsibility is also desired in Estonia; therefore, it is interesting to hear how the change that entered into force last year was implemented in the United Kingdom.”
During the second half of the conference we will consider the personal responsibility topic in shaping old age – first and foremost from a financial literacy and employment perspective. The presentations will be followed by a discussion with the participation of the Minister of Social Protection of Estonia Margus Tsahkna, one of the founders of Tuleva pension fund Annika Uudelepp and an economist from the Swedish Pension Board Ole Settergren. During the discussion, we will summarise the ideas of the conference and discuss what the government and citizens should do in order to cope in the future when retired. The opening remarks at the conference will be given by President of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid.
The Head of Pension Policy of the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia Kristiina Selgis adds: “I am glad that the public is becoming increasingly aware that everyone should contribute to securing the future of their pension, and the Pension 2050 vision conference will definitely contribution to strengthening this worldview.“
The conference is part of two-year programme of the Cooperation Assembly. Under the programme, we will develop a vision of the “new old age” and policy recommendations for the renewal of the pension system by the beginning of 2017.
The conference will take place in the Euroopa conference hall in the Astra building of Tallinn University. The event is for anyone who wishes to hear new ideas and discuss the subject of the future old age. The event will be held in Estonian, though the speeches of the foreign presenters present will be simultaneously interpreted.
The conference agenda is available here.
Additional information:
Liisi Uder
Head of Pension 2050 programme
liisi@kogu.ee
640 8716
Kristiina Selgis
The Head of Pension Policy of the Ministry of Social Affairs
kristiina.selgis@sm.ee
626 9232