Ending the medical pension for civil servants is not a punishment: it is fixing a system that pushed people out of the workforce too quickly.
With this reform, same illness, same rights, same rules for everyone.
Permanent exclusion is replaced by support and genuine back-to-work policies.
More fairness, more responsibility, more dignity at work.
1. Assessment
The current retirement pension system for physical incapacity of statutory civil servants allows, once fully paid sick days are exhausted, for permanent retirement. This mechanism has led to deeply problematic situations: sometimes very young staff, still far from the legal retirement age, permanently left the labour market, without any real reintegration policy or enhanced medical follow-up.
In January 2025, nearly 88,000 people were receiving a pension due to physical incapacity. This high figure reveals not only a budgetary drift, but also a human failure: the system favoured permanent exit rather than support, retraining or a gradual return to work.
2. Putting people and fairness back at the centre
The reform decided by the De Wever government puts an end to this logic of exclusion. From 1 April 2026, new cases of incapacity among statutory civil servants will no longer fall under the pension scheme, but under health and disability insurance (Inami), as is already the case for private sector workers.
This reform is based on three pillars:
- Fairness: for a comparable medical situation, the same rules must apply, regardless of professional status.
- Accountability: all employers, including public ones, must contribute to financing social security.
- Return to work: priority given to support, medical checks and active reintegration policies.
3. From exclusion to support
In practical terms, long-term sick civil servants will now be subject to the same rules, checks and back-to-work mechanisms as private sector employees. This is a major cultural shift: a person is no longer “pensioned off” because they are ill, they are supported.
The reform goes hand in hand with the abolition of the ability to indefinitely accumulate fully paid sick days, a mechanism that objectively encouraged permanent exit rather than a gradual return to work.
4. Budgetary impact
The abolition of the pension for physical incapacity will generate a gross saving of €245 million by 2029 for the pension scheme.
At the same time, the coverage of new cases by health and disability insurance will represent a cost of €126 million for Inami, partially offset by €37 million in contributions now paid by public employers. The net cost to the federal government of this shift to Inami is therefore estimated at €89 million.
Overall, the reform generates a net positive budgetary return of €156 million in 2029 for the federal government, while putting an end to a historic exception and introducing a fairer distribution of costs.
5. The case of education
The situation of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, and in particular French-speaking education, illustrates the urgency of acting differently. Teachers represent a disproportionate share of incapacity pensions.
The answer cannot be to maintain a system that encourages permanent exit. The MR instead advocates for:
- stronger burnout prevention,
- better career management,
- retraining and work adjustment schemes,
- and an active back-to-work policy, including in other public functions.