The government withheld €25bn from the reserves of the civil service pension fund in the 1990s, making it partly responsible for the fund’s current problems, former ABP investment head Jean Frijns has told a tv show.

ABP has announced it will not be increasing pensions next year but is increasing premiums because the fund does not have enough reserves.
According to the Volkskrant, Frijns told tv current affairs show KRO Reporter the government had failed to pay €15bn-worth of premiums to the fund by the time it was made independent in 1996.
A further €10bn was spent by the government on early retirement schemes, even though the money had been earmarked for regular pensions, Frijns, now a professor at the VU university, said.