Martin Bangemann's Pension

The agreement by Martin Bangemann not to take up his new job with a Spanish telecommunications company until a year had elapsed since his departure from the disgraced Santer Commission, where he headed DGIII (Industry), has averted the threat of disciplinary and legal proceedings for sleaze. It has also removed the danger of his pension being annulled. But the affair has once more revealed the persistence, in the Community administration as well as elsewhere, of the out-dated belief that pensions are a privilege and a boon that should only be given to deserving recipients and that can be summarily taken away for misconduct. It is time that it was recognised, as the ECJ has done in relation to employee pensions, that all occupational pensions, including those attached to the holding of office, form a deferred part of the beneficiary's pay, and as such are untouchable.