Barna urges coalition partners to reject special pensions for mayors

Co-chair of the Save Romania Union - Freedom, Unity and Solidarity Party (USR PLUS) alliance Dan Barna said on Monday that he would ask coalition partners to reject special pensions for locally elected officials, noting that there were "surprise votes" in parliamentary committees.

In a statement to the media, he said that the issue was discussed at the USR PLUS National Bureau meeting.

"It is an initiative in Parliament; we see surprising votes, to say the least, in parliamentary committees. USR PLUS remains consistent with its message that I will convey to the coalition tonight. The fight with special pensions means, piece by piece, dismantling this system of deeply-seeded benefits and cronyisms set in stone in the national legislation. Given that these special pensions have not come into force ... we must make sure that they never do, because we see - and we have the bitter experience of past legislature - how difficult it is to repeal various categories of special pensions when they become active legislation. Which is why our position is to block and prevent the entry into force of this initiative, and we are calling on our coalition colleagues to supports the rejection of this law, which would enter into force next year," Barna said at the Parliament House.

USR on Thursday accused PNL, the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD) of not supporting in the human rights committee a positive opinion on a bill repealing special pensions for locally elected officials.

Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Ludovic Orban, the national leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), said on Friday that no special pensions are currently paid to mayors, mentioning that he, during his term as prime minister, and the Citu government have extended the entry into force of the provisions to that end in the Administrative Code.

"At present, no special pensions are paid to mayors. So, as the prime minister, I postponed the entry into force of the provisions of the Administrative Code in 2020, and so did the Citu government. Obviously, the pension law will regulate this subject more thoroughly. You know that there is intense activity at the Ministry of Labour. There is also a coalition-level commission that is practically preparing pension reform," Orban said when asked about the allegation of PNL's governing ally USR PLUS allegations against PNL that the Liberals did not endorse in the committees a bill on the repeal of special pensions for locally elected officials.

He said that if necessary, the issue would be discussed in the ruling coalition..