The estimates of pension spending take account of the effects of current legislation, which includes the revision each decade of the coefficients for converting the contribution base into the annual pension entitlement and the tightening as of 2008 of the minimum pension eligibility requirements by Law 243/2004.
According to the State Accounting Office, with no updating of the conversion coefficients (which apply to benefits paid under the defined-contributions scheme introduced in 1995) the ratio of expenditure to GDP would be higher by 0.7 percentage points in 2030, 1.5 points in 2040 and about 2 points in 2050; other conditions being equal, the ratio of the debt to GDP would be some 40 points higher.