Kelemen Hunor: Pensions should be calculated based on contribution, they cannot be higher than salary.
Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) Chairman Kelemen Hunor, Deputy Prime Minister in the Ciuca Cabinet, told AGERPRES, in an interview, that regarding service pensions, also called special pensions in the media, his opinion is that pensions should be calculated based on contribution, because no one can have a pension higher than the salary, told Agerpres.
"We have made at least two huge mistakes with service pensions. First, 10 years ago, almost everyone, and that's why I say "almost everyone," because I didn't really engage in this contest of demagogy and populism, said that "we come to power and cancel the special service pensions in I don't know how long," but in a short time. And of course they created an expectation among the population, plus they showed an injustice, indeed, that must be solved, but not by demagogy. The second mistake was that we were not able, although there was such a proposal, at least on our part, from 2020, 2021, 2022, to have an extremely honest dialogue in which we said that those who are in public service and have bans, as this is about bans, incompatibilities, during the period they are in the public service, beyond their contribution - contribution must remain the basis - they receive one, two, three points when they retire or not, depending on the period and depending on the bans, as happens in all the civilised world. And you can have two conclusions. You can say "I don't care, you chose this public service, I'm not giving you any extra points based on contributions, you'll have a big enough pension anyway." This is one of the possible conclusions. The second conclusion could be "yes, you were in public service and you had bans, incompatibilities, depending on 'which' they give you two, three, four points more." We gave up this honest and principled debate and instead wanted to hit either parliamentarians, magistrates, military, diplomats or mayors and in fact we never succeeded. Now the expectation among the population is as follows: 80% of the people want to abolish service pensions. They don't want the correction anymore. After 10 years of demagoguery they want the cancellation. What we have committed ourselves to in the Commission, in the PNRR, is a readjustment. And here, of course, there is a discussion of the contribution rate or the salary or income - 45%, 65%, 85% - whatever it is. The magistrates don't want to hear less than 85% and the Commission proposes 45% uniform for everyone. I say the like this: the contribution is the basis, you can't have your pension higher than your salary. In 2019, in 2020, we had a legislative initiative that did not stand up to the scrutiny of the Constitutional Court, in which we said that no pension can be higher than the president's income - here, of course, it must be set gross, net, it does not matter - and no pension in the public area, because you, if you were a banker and you contributed and you reached I don't know what pension, of course, it is possible. But from the private area there is no question of putting bans on the one hand, on the other hand there is the taxation on the part that is higher. At the moment there is nothing Romania can do: either it loses money from the PNRR and is left with the anger of the people, which is the worst option, or it does not lose the money and solves the problem that 10 years in a row everyone promised to solve. But no matter which direction we go, the principles must be established and these will be the principles: contributivity, no pension will be higher, if it happens, then taxation should be in place," said Kelemen Hunor.
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