3 European Countries Grab at Private Pensions

As European governments seek new sources of revenue, private retirement plans are taking a hit. Since most are organized by the state, "European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends," writes Jan Iwanik for the Christian Science Monitor. Iwanick highlights five such schemes:

• Hungarians last month had to choose between handing the government their retirement savings or giving up their state pensions.
• In Bulgaria, the government called for $300 million of private early retirement savings to be moved to state pensions; trade union protests weakened the plan.

• The Polish government wants a third of future private retirement fund contributions to go to social security.

Not a matter of personal savings, but related to national funds:

• In Ireland, the government earmarked some $5 billion of a national pension fund to save banks in 2009; this year, the rest of that fund was spent on the country’s bailout.
• France earmarked some $43 billion from the government’s reserve pension fund to cut a short-term pension deficit. Retirement savings that was to be used in the years 2020 to 2040 will now be used between 2011 and 2024.

(More Hungary stories.)