The devil's in the detail...

The European Commission has a rather crude habit of publishing potentially controversial reports just as most Euro MPs and members of national parliaments are packing their buckets and spades.

Among this year's choices was a green paper entitled Towards Adequate: Sustainable And Safe European Pensions Systems.

Brussels-watchers will know that such a title spells trouble. The general rule is the better something sounds on the cover, the worse the contents. This document is no exception.

Its basic argument is that an ageing population, the economic and financial crisis and the extent of public debt together mean that pensionable retirement ages must be increased.

Aside from the weaknesses of this position, two aspects of this green paper are worthy of note.

First, as things stand pensions are entirely a national responsibility. The green paper thus represents yet another attempt at empire-building by the commission, which is keen to see its power and influence penetrate every aspect of policy.

Second, issues which were once matters for elected politicians to decide are increasingly viewed as technical questions unsuitable for democratic input.

The EU authorities have long been concerned by the proportion of people not in employment.

The commission's view is that the EU target of a 75 per cent employment participation rate "requires employment rates significantly higher than the present levels in the age group 55 to 65."

In other words, too many people are taking early retirement and schemes which exist in many member states to enable them to do so should presumably be scrapped.

Steps in a number of member states towards a flexible retirement system should therefore be halted and reversed.

Yet the green paper admits that the real problem is the encouragement of private pensions, which have been badly hit by the crisis.

Tax relief on such schemes benefits only the better off and the rich owners of the companies which run them.

Publicly funded pensions, on the other hand, have meant that in most member states, as the green paper notes, "current pensioners have so far been among those least affected by the crisis."

In common with unemployment benefits, guaranteed minimum incomes, sickness benefits and other publicly funded payments, sound state pensions offer an automatic "stimulus package" in times of financial and economic crisis, maintaining the incomes of those in the potentially worst-hit sections of the population and putting cash into the economy which can then, if governments get other aspects of policy right, create employment.

Yet the commission favours reductions in public expenditure and the strengthening of private pensions systems, including through the encouragement of a single EU market in such "financial products."

Instead of redistributive pensions which would guarantee every citizen a dignified old age, the commission wants to see a system in which we are all encouraged to take out, at the very least, a "complementary" pension run by profit-seeking corporations able to sell their "products" throughout Europe.

It sees pensions primarily from this point of view - what is important is "competition," so that "consumers" have "choice."

What of solidarity between young and old, between those who enter their post-employment years in the best of health and those who suffer physical or mental health problems, and between those who have always been fortunate enough to earn decent wages and those who have had to struggle along on a low income?

All of these, even where lip service is paid to them, are secondary considerations of little or no importance.

The worst aspect of the paper, however, is the way in which it proposes taking decisions on pensionable ages out of the hands of the people of the supposedly democratic member states altogether.

This would be achieved by instituting "an automatic adjustment that increases the pensionable age in line with future gains in life expectancy."

This is a chilling prospect.

Even if honestly operated, it would bind future generations to a single approach, one which sees greater wealth as always and only a way to buy - and sell - more stuff.

If a country's wealth increases, it is perfectly reasonable for the people of that country to decide to spend it on increased leisure rather than ever-more consumption.

With paid holidays, shorter working hours and funded pensions, this is effectively what western European countries did in the years following the war, when the influence of trade unions was most strongly felt in the corridors of power.

Much of the "counter-revolution" of the last 30 years has involved undermining this influence in a desperate attempt to shore up the rate of profit and halt downward distribution of wealth, thereby preserving a capitalist system whose "crisis" is, in reality, permanent and incurable.

An automatic increase in the pension age each time life expectancy increases would represent yet another nail in the coffin of a social democracy which, for all its limitations, made poverty history for a majority of the population of Britain and an even greater majority in countries such as the Netherlands and the Nordic lands.

A system such as that in the Netherlands, where almost all workers know how much pension they can expect and any fall in returns on investment is compensated for by adjustments to the contributions of both employees and employers, would become impossible.

Instead, the better paid would opt for private pensions, reducing the size of the public fund to unsustainable levels.

And you can be sure that increases in life expectancy would simply be fiddled upwards, while decreases in life expectancy, already evident in the United States, would be ignored.

There is a statutory consultation procedure for the proposals discussed in the green paper, which closes on November 15.

Whether it will do any good or not, it's important that trade unions, pensioners' groups and others make it clear that these proposals are unacceptable.

What is needed are solidarity-based state pension systems under national control, well-regulated occupational pensions with, where appropriate, public support and the phasing out of tax relief on private schemes.