MEPs unanimously reject the draft Social Security budget in committee

The deputies of the Social Affairs Committee unanimously rejected the revenue part of the draft Social Security budget for 2025 on Friday, thus bringing down the entire text.

Several key measures had already been removed this week. The commission had rejected the overhaul of employer contributions and the freezing of retirement pensions, wanted by the government to each generate four billion euros in savings. The deputies also pushed back the health insurance spending objective, the pillar of the text. They will return to the chamber on Monday with the initial version of the bill.

From the left to the RN via the right and the Macronists

The vote will still have to be confirmed from Monday in the hemicycle, where the deputies will start from the government’s initial version. The freezing of retirement pensions, one of the main sources of savings in his bill, was rejected by most of the deputies present in committee, from the left to the National Rally via the right and the Macronists – although supporters of the executive.

Only one Horizons elected official opposed the deletion of this key article, while Modem abstained. Consensus, the question of pensions brought together the ecologist Sandrine Rousseau and the republican Thibault Bazin, who denounced with one voice “a profoundly unfair measure”.

RN Thomas Ménage, for his part, castigated the “easy solution” of a “disguised tax on retirees”, at the risk of “breaking trust” with the State.

Macronist Didier Le Gac (EPR) simply recalled that his party had “made a commitment during the legislative campaign not to organize a freeze on pensions”.