Approved the expansion of early retirement due to disability to eleven additional pathologies

The Council of Ministers, in its meeting this Tuesday, has approved a Royal Decree by which access to early retirement due to disability is extended to those affected by 11 new disability-generating pathologies.

This measure, which materializes in the inclusion in the Annex of Royal Decree 1851/2009, which comprises the pathologies that can lead to the reduction of the retirement age for workers with a disability of 45% or more, benefits around 50,000 people, who will be able to advance their retirement age to 56 years due to the pathology they suffer from.

The new pathologies are: Spina bifida, Variant transthyretin amyloidosis, Parkinson's disease, Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (Steinert), Huntington's disease, Systemic sclerosis, Spinal cord injury, Corticobasal degeneration, Multiple system atrophy and Progressive supranuclear palsy, and Chronic Kidney Disease stage G5.

For Minister Elma Saiz, “thousands of people suffering from serious illnesses that condition their work performance will be able to benefit from this Government decision, whose objective is for them to have special protection that does justice and equates their possibilities with those of the rest of the working population“.

The new Royal Decree, which will come into force the day after its publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE), culminates a procedure in which a Technical Commission integrated by medical specialists, scientists, and disability experts representing the Carlos III Health Institute, the Forensic Medical Council, the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine, the National Institute of Social Security (INSS), the Institute of Seniors and Social Services (IMSERSO), and the National Disability Council; as well as by the Directorate General for Social Security Regulation (DGOSS), which has endorsed the inclusion of new disability-generating pathologies in the Annex, has acted as proponent.

This procedure has allowed for the updating and expansion of an open legal annex, by incorporating new diseases whose severity and effects are capable of justifying an earlier retirement age for workers with a disability of at least 45 percent.

The DGOSS, which chairs the Technical Commission, has been responsible for studying the requests for inclusion and, subsequently, for preparing the reports on each pathology that led to the initial favorable resolution for these 11 new pathologies.

Following the modification of the Annex of the aforementioned royal decree, workers with disabilities who are affected by these pathologies will be able to anticipate their retirement age to 56 years, without this implying a reduction in the amount of their pension.

To do so, they must meet two requirements: be registered or in a situation assimilated to being registered on the date of the event giving rise to the right, and prove 15 years of contributions throughout their working life and, within that period, that for at least 5 years they have been affected by one of these pathologies with a disability equal to or greater than 45%.

In these cases, the period of time by which the worker's retirement age is reduced will be counted as contributed to determine the percentage applicable to the regulatory base, which is used to calculate the amount of the retirement pension.