The question of reforming Belgium's pension system has been simmering away for weeks, dividing De Croo's government with negotiations breaking down several times before finally reaching an agreement last night.
The Prime Minister had tried various persuasive techniques to secure the reforms, increasingly opting for a conciliatory approach. This included a Friday night barbecue as a more laid-back atmosphere to chew over pension changes. But ultimately, it was the classic inter-regional grilling that provided the goods – even though discussions continued until the early hours of Tuesday morning on the hottest night of the year.
De Croo summarised the reform as "a pension package that puts people to work". If that in fact sounds like the complete opposite of a pension package, what he means is that those who choose to work beyond the mandatory minimum to receive a state pension will be rewarded with a pension bonus (that Belgium's last government had got rid of).
That all seems fairly straightforward. Yet calculating at what point people are eligible for the minimum state pension is a little more tricky and something that @Maajtee has done very well here.
As someone who still has a few decades to go before calling closing time on the nine to five, the figure that caught my eye was 5000 – the number of working days required to receive a pension. It's a number that doesn't seem excessively big but isn't very small either. Either way, I'm still a long way off but it's an interesting way to visualise your path to retirement. And tomorrow I'll be one day closer.
Were you following the pensions debate or just surviving the heat? Let @Orlando_tbt know.
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