A total of 2,187 Belgians are entitled to the maximum monthly pension of €7,813 pre-tax, Het Belang van Limburg reports.
The Flemish outlet revealed these figures following a scandal in the Federal Parliament this week, where former officials were found to have received "illegal" retirement allowances.
On Wednesday, Belgium's Pensions Minister Karine Lalieux (PS) called for the end of a scheme that allowed former parliamentary officials to receive an added bonus on top of their pensions.
Among those accused of having benefited from the illegal scheme, the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo's own father Herman De Croo is said to have pocketed an additional €6,000 per month in his role as former President of the Chamber of Representatives.
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These revelations led Het Belang van Limburg to consult the Federal Pension Service to discover how many Belgians were entitled to the maximum pension of €7,813 per month. Their figures found that 2,187 citizens were paid this amount, as all of them had worked their entire careers as civil servants.
The Flemish newspaper also asked expert Ria Janvier, a Professor at the University of Antwerp, whether these pensions should be further capped. She argued that due to the maximum pension not having changed since 1978, any further threshold on these pensions "would make it hard to employ top civil servants."
