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‘Pension age could inch up again’: report

Swedes may again be facing additional years at work, with the official pension age hitting 69, if a government review expected in the spring goes from words to actions.

Published: 21 February 2013 08:30 CET

'Pension age could inch up again': report

A report in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper shows that both the minimum and maximum pension age might be raised.

In other words, the youngest age that a Swede can access the general pension system will no longer be 61. Swedes would instead have to wait until they are 63.

They will also have the right to keep working beyond the new pension age of 67, which now may end up being 69.

This would bring Sweden in line with Nordic neighbours Norway and Iceland, the two countries with the oldest pension age in all of Europe.

In the US, the upper pension age is 66 for citizens born before 1960, and 67 for those born later, according to OECD statistics. In France, the lower limit is 60, the upper limit 62.

For private pensions and certain types of service pensions, access is possible after the person turns 55, according to DN’s review.

A government review of pensions lead by Ingemar Eriksson is currently underway. He declined to comment on any of the leaked figures, saying the report would be published in April.

Pensions have become a hot button topic in Sweden, after the right-of-centre government proposed inching up the age limits last year.

Employees in high-stress sectors such as nursing have said it is not physically possible for many healthcare providers to add years to their working lives.

The Swedish Pensions Authority’s own statistics shows that Swedes who did not finish high school retire at an average age of 61.7, while Swedes who have gone onto further education retire at 63.4.

Swedes who have continued their studies and have done academic research work even longer, retiring on average at the age of 65.

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'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast.

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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