assuming that no further pension reforms will be undertaken, the Commission’s Ageing Report5 projects total age-related public expenditures to increase on average by 3.6% of GDP in the euro area between 2010 and 2060, of which 1.4% of GDP is related to pension expenditures.
However, it is precisely in the domain of reforms to contain the long-term burden of ageing populations on public expenditures that the countries under stress have already made adjustments. Italy and Portugal, for instance, have negligible projected increases in age-related expenditure.