Countries party to the Eurozone are currently raising their retirement ages, while lack of labour reforms in Poland may mean that the country will have one of the youngest retirement ages in the EU.

During Friday’s EU summit in Brussels, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue of the unification of the retirement age in EU member states, especially with regard to the Eurozone countries.

Rzeczpospolita reports that at least 15 EU member states are working on retirement age reform. In Poland, the issue of retirement ages was to have been raised by the ruling Civic Platform at the beginning of 2010, although seemingly has fallen from the agenda.

“[Poles] too have to start working longer,” Ewa Lewicka-Banaszak, head of the Commercial Chamber for Pension Funds told the daily, adding that “unfortunately, the current government has decided to sit out until the elections, and there is no wish to undertake any kind of reforms whatsoever.”

The UK, Greece and Austria have similar retirement ages to Poland, although these are expected to change soon and mainly concern levelling the retirement age for women and men.

Meanwhile, Germany, Holland, Denmark and Spain have ushered in plans to raise the retirement age to 67 for both men and women, with Denmark deliberating raising the age to 72.

The daily Rzeczpospolita acknowledges that after further retirement reforms are introduced throughout the EU, Poland will have one of the lowest retirement ages in the whole bloc.

In Poland, the average retirement age stands at around 56-58, with only citizens of Luxembourg deciding on such a move earlier. In France the average retirement age currently stands at 59.4 years. (jb)

Related story:

One third of Poles over 50 retiring early, thenews.pl 09.10.2010