The Spanish government on Thursday announced a preliminary agreement on a pension reform in another move to boost market confidence and ward off an international bailout, according to dpa. The Labour Ministry said the government, trade unions and employers had reached an agreement in "principle," though details still remained to be worked out. The agreement was expected to raise retirement age from 65 to 67 years. One of the main points of disagreement concerned the number of years workers would have to pay into the pension scheme in order to retire at 65 on a full pension. The ministry said the negotiating partners had agreed on 38.5 years. The government had accelerated negotiations in order to avoid imposing the reform unilaterally by decree on Friday. General strikes were meanwhile getting underway against the reform in the northern regions of Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque region. Public transport in the Catalan capital Barcelona was reported to functioning relatively well. The strike had more impact in Galicia, where intercity buses and garbage collection was paralysed in several places. In the Basque region, a burning barricade caused traffic problems near Bilbao. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government sees the pension reform as necessary in order to finance future social security in a country with an ageing population. The percentage of Spaniards aged over 64 will double to around 30 per cent of the population by 2049, according to the National Statistics Institute. The pension reform also aims at dissipating international concern over Spain's budget deficit of 9.3 per cent. The pension reform follows a reform to make the labour market more flexible, which sparked a general strike in September. Spain's 20 per cent unemployment rate is the eurozone's highest. The Spanish government has also launched other measures, including an austerity budget and a savings bank reform, to shore up an economy which was hit hard by the collapse of a housing bubble and the global crisis.
