EDF’s IPO and the application of international accounting standards required the valuation and provisioning of commitments to retired employees. The maintaining of the industry’s special welfare plans faced with this requirement was supported by the overhaul of their financing: affiliation with standard mandatory plans for pensions and strengthening of affiliation between current and retired employee plans for complementary health insurance cover.
| Special pension plan |
The special pension plan has, like other public sector special pension plans, been increasingly affected by efforts to reform mandatory pension plans launched by successive governments. Except for the pension calculation method (specific rate, applied to a salary at the end of career, with a reduced base), the main parameters (retirement age, required contribution period, etc.) tend to be in line with the standard compulsory plan. The definition of active service, enabling earlier retirements, has been revised and the way it is taken into account has been significantly overhauled for newly-hired employees, via the creation of a Retirement Days Savings Account. A bill introducing a universal pension system for all employees affected by the reform, regardless of their pension scheme, including the EGI scheme, was examined by the National Assembly in February 2020, before being suspended on account of the Covid health crisis. If a new pension reform bill, whatever its nature, were to be re-launched in the near future, the major issues for the EDF group would remain threefold:
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| Health, disability, and death |
The level of employee health, disability and life cover appeared to need updating to meet that offered by other major groups, which led to a complementary cover in these three areas, in the form of an agreement at branch level. An agreement on family rights was signed in 2017 at the level of the EGI branch with the trade union organisations, to modernise the social system. In terms of health insurance, 2021 saw the culmination of an in-depth consultation between the social partners of the EGIs and the government concerning a rebalancing of the accounts of CAMIEG (health insurance fund for the electricity and gas industry), which have carried a surplus since its creation in 2007. The rebalancing is specifically based on a reduction in employer and employee complementary health insurance contributions, a reduction in the solidarity contribution paid by the working population for the non-working population and an improvement in optical benefits. These provisions have opened the way to a broader rethinking of how to monitor CAMIEG’s balance of accounts and how to potentially increase responsiveness in order to recalibrate rates to the observed reality of financial balances. In practice, these measures will benefit the employees of the EGIs. These measures have a positive financial impact on their pay in 2021 and 2022: the rate of employee complementary health insurance contributions is 25% less than in 2020 and, from 2023 onwards, this rate reduction will remain 5% less than the 2020 rate of employee contributions. The solidarity contribution paid by the working population for the non-working population has been permanently reduced by 17%, from January 2021. |
The Group’s other employees in France are covered by several collective bargaining agreements and can have fringe benefits provided by their own employer. Each employer must ensure that the benefits provided are consistent with the Group policy. For Group companies outside France, even if the regulatory context specific to each country must be taken into account, each entity is required to ensure that the capital paid out in the event of a death under death benefit contracts covers one year’s salary at the very least.
