Spain aims to level playing field for national police pensioners

Spain's Government is pushing through a significant change to the pension system for the National Police, aimed at correcting a long-standing disparity within the force. The Ministry of Social Security is working on a decree to equalize retirement conditions for officers who joined from 2011 onwards, under the General Regime, with those integrated into the former State Classes.

Anticipation of retirement to 60 years old

The key element of the reform is the application of a 0.20 reduction coefficient to the retirement age for every year of complete service as a national police officer.

This means that for every five years of service, the officer can retire a year earlier without suffering pension cuts. However, there are limits. To access this benefit, officers must have contributed at least 15 years as police. Moreover, the resulting retirement age cannot be below 60, except in exceptional cases. When an officer has 37 years or more of effective and contributed service, they can anticipate retirement up to age 59.

Surcharge for early retirement

The trade-off is a higher contribution rate throughout their career. Under this formula, the time of early retirement is counted as contributed for pension calculation purposes. This allows the officer to reach 100% of their base regulatory amount, even if they retire five or six years before the ordinary age.

This point is crucial to understanding the attraction of the measure. The anticipation does not imply a reduction in income in retirement, unlike opting for early retirement within the general system.

However, the access to this benefit will not be free. To fund the higher pension cost over more years, the Government plans a mandatory 10.6% monthly surcharge on the common contingencies base. Of this, 8.84 points will fall on the Administration, through the Interior Ministry, and 1.76 points directly on the police officer, translating to a reduction in their net salary.

This overall rate applied to this concept will reach 38.90%, split between 32.44% borne by the State and 6.46% borne by the worker.

According to the text obtained, this surcharge is expected to be automatic for all national police officers incorporated since January 1, 2011, i.e., those encadred in the General Regime of Social Security. In fact, the draft stresses that this surcharge constitutes an