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Save Romania Union (USR) national leader Catalin Drula on Tuesday presented his party's proposals regarding the special state pensions, noting that the application of these principles would lead to annual savings of RON 4 billion.
He told the Europa FM private broadcaster that the proposals are designed to bring the special pensions in line with the principle of contribution, told Agerpres.
"We have a proposal based on rules to align with the principle of contribution: at least 35 years of contributions except only for those who have difficult or harmful jobs. There is simultaneous and equal percentage indexation with the contributory system. The special pensions not for the military or magistrates would be repealed and recalculated, and for those already drawing such pensions the calculation would take into account the entire career. For magistrates' state pensions, in order to respect the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), the magistrates will no longer receive a state pension until the conditions for retirement in the contributory system are met. They can return to gainful employment and that also solves the staff shortage. Then, state pensions should be capped at 95% of the last net wage (...) And for the military, a proposal that can be on the table is that those who have a military pension can keep it if it does not exceed the average value of a state pension. And indexing as a counterweight should be done from the moment when the contributory system also reaches that average. The calculation basis should be the entire career, and for the non-contributory periods a calculation should be made simulating the existence of contributions. The savings based on this calculation - my colleague Cristian Seidler used to work with the Labour Committee - are somewhere around RON 4 billion annually," said Drula.
He criticised the lack of debates regarding the reform of special state pensions and mentioned that a proposal that can be taken into account is that military pensions of less than RON 3,800 lei should remain in place.
"The PNRR [National Recovery and Resilience Plan] provides for reforming to bring the special state pensions in line with the principle of contribution (...) for example, military pensions that have the value up to the current average military wage, which is RON 3,800 lei, should remain the same, because there are a lot of small military pensions. PNRR provided for this exact discussion. What the current coalition has done is to send a bill that does not cut anything (...) Obviously, the intention is to keep these pensions in their current form," he said.
He disapproved of retirement at "young ages", giving the example of magistrates from other countries who retire at older ages.
