The Central Staff Council (‘the COR’) and Shell Netherlands (‘Shell NL’) have been regularly and constructively discussing the future of our pensions for some time now. The reason for these is the new Future of Pensions Act. Good progress has been made and that means we are entering the next phase. In this phase, the VOEKS (‘Association of former employees of Shell’) Hearing Rights Committee (‘VHC’) will exercise its so-called legal “hearing right” and give its opinion on the draft transition plan that reflects the proposal for a new pension scheme and the transition.
This opinion will then be taken into account by the COR and Shell NL in the follow-up discussions. This will take some time. After this, the intended proposal as discussed with the COR and with the VHC will be submitted to the COR via a formal request for consent. The consent of the COR is needed before any changes can be implemented. We will therefore only be able to provide more information about our new pension scheme and the transitional measures in a few months’ time.
In addition, in this next phase, we will also continue the iterative and preparatory discussions with the boards of the pension funds (SNPS and SSPF). The boards have the task of assessing the new pension scheme for feasibility and balance, among other things. This means they must assess whether all interests have been properly weighed in the process. To this end, an internal decision-making process takes place within the funds. After the decision of the funds, the new scheme will have to be implemented. We aim to implement the changes to the SNPS scheme by 1 January 2026. For the SSPF scheme, this is 1 January 2027.
Both the COR and Shell NL appreciate the constructive cooperation and confidently look forward to the next phase in the process.