Dear Chair,

I speak to you as Rapporteur for the European Semester of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands.

We as delegates of the Netherlands would like to use this interparliamentary conference to share best practices of member states in stead of talking about the procedures of the European semester.

The Netherlands has been given a recommendation on reform in pensions.

We have a long term tradition of saving for private pensions.

So we do realise pensions have to be sustainable.

In the Netherlands we are now on the road to connect pension age with life expectancy step-by-step, 3 months per year, from 65 up.

So we prolong the time people work and pay pension contributions.

We struggle to deal with intergenerational solidarity, so that younger people are able to build up pension for themselves and not only for the elderly today.

I would like to ask commisioner Andor what his view is on how to deal with the effect of aging population for younger people and how to safeguard an old age pension for our children and grandchildren?

Finally, as rapporteur for the European semester, I want to appeal to alle MP’s of member states to use this conference to contact us and each other, to learn from each others struggles and solutions.