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The European Commission confirms that the Government tried to save special pensions, Save Romania Union (USR) MEP Cristian Seidler said on Wednesday, saying that Labour Minister Marius Budai should resign.
"I have seen the European Commission's letter to the Romanian Government on special pensions. It confirms what we already knew: that the draft law initiated by the Romanian Government only tried to save special pensions. The European Commission says (...) that this bill has a very modest impact on the budget expenditure on special pensions. The European Commission is expecting Mr Marius Budai for informal discussions on May 3 - 4. (...) We believe that Mr. Marius Budai could have made this trip during the whole year 2022 and that by May 3-4 we should have a new Minister of Labour to have this discussion, because - and this is what we think is very important in this letter - the European Commission ignores the lie of the Romanian Government, a lie told to the World Bank, that Romania does not collect information on the salary income of the military during their entire career," Seidler said at Parliament.
According to him, the Labour Minister should resign.
"Minister Budai should submit his resignation along with possibly other ministers of the line, who would have supported this hoax, I refer to the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Interior, those who know very well that this information exists," said the USR MEP.
He mentioned that the European Commission's recommendations on the reform of military pensions refer to the calculation based on the income of the entire career, to a replacement rate that should be 45%, compared to the 65% that currently exists, and to the integration of military pensions into the general contributory system and from the perspective of increases, told Agerpres.
Regarding magistrates, Seidler added, the European Commission is asking the Romanian Government, "and this is in perfect alignment with what the Constitutional Court describes in its many decisions," to increase the length of service, a lower replacement rate and to align the increase in pensions with the time and percentage increase in contributory pensions.
As regards the other categories of special pensions, the MEP said that the European Commission expects Romania to have a unitary system - i.e. the same retirement age, the same pension calculation basis, the same replacement rate and alignment with the contributory system.
