NETHERLANDS - A generational conflict among Dutch civil servants could be brewing after ABP’s agreement with government employers and unions to adjust pre-pension arrangements.

Some younger civil servants have even set up a web site to air their grievances.

They are upset that their older colleagues – those before 1950 – will keep on benefiting from the existing arrangements. This is after the pre-pension scheme was adapted to the new ‘levensloop’, or life course, scheme as of January 1.

“All civil servants will pay 3.7% in extra premiums for the agreed transitional scheme during the next 15 years,” the group of 12 young civil servants say on their site. “The early retirement age for older civil servants needs to rise as well”.

An appeal from columnist Frank Kalshoven in daily De Volkskrant has led to over 650 emails being by young civil servants to ABP, Europe’s largest pension fund.

“The emails should have been sent to the social partners, who have commissioned the calculations”, ABP spokesman Marcel Vleugels responded.

Union negotiator Xander den Uyl stressed in the today’s Volkskrant that the new arrangements are cheaper and offer more flexibility for all members via the ‘levensloop’.

“Because of a change from pay as you go to capital funding, all government employees will be contributing. Moreover, the older colleagues have, as a matter of solidarity, already paid pre-pension premiums for the generation above them.”

Social partners’ spokesman Kees Verhagen said that negotiations about the details of the arrangements are still ongoing. “But unless the future consultations with our members indicate otherwise, it is unlikely that there will be changes in favour of the young civil servants,” he told IPE.

The young civil servants claim to have started a ‘spontaneous initiative to registering the young generation’s view on solidarity’. “We represent a feeling,” said a spokesman, who didn’t want to be named. He said he doesn’t know how much support they have, “because we are an action group without members”.

ABP has 2.6m members and assets under management of €170bn.