Parliament gave a first reading to the bill that allows for the indexation of pensions two times a year, on April 1 and on October 1, for all the pensioners. On April 1, the indexation coefficient will be equal to the inflation rate in the last semester of the previous year, while on October 1 to the inflation rate in the first semester of the current year. The PAS and PPPDA MPs criticized the initiative, saying it is antisocial, IPN reports.
In the Parliament sitting, Minister of Health, Labor and Social Protection Viorica Dumbrăveanu said the bill institutes the semi-annual indexation of all the pensions, regardless of their size, and the semi-annual indexation of the minimum guaranteed monthly income, which is used to determine the social benefit and the cold-month allowance. On April 1, the current norm will be applied and the pensions will be indexed by 4.8%. In October, the indexation rate is projected to be of 3%.
Dan Perciun, MP of the PAS group of the ACUM Bloc, said the pensions will be indexed less than at present if the proposed amendments are adopted and given the existing forecasts.
The minister replied that in accordance with the current law, only those whose pension is lower than the minimum subsistence level of 1,727 would benefit from indexation on October 1. But this leads to discrepancy in the social insurance system. Those whose pensions will be by at least 1 leu higher than the minimum subsistence level will not benefit from indexation. The new provisions allow indexing all the pensions.
Alexandru Slusari, MP of the PPPDA group of the ACUM Bloc, said that if the current provisions had been kept, the pensions lower than the minimum subsistence level would have been raised by 9.6%. Now these pensions would be increased by 7% at most. But everything depends on the inflation and it is known that food prices in summer usually decrease. The MPs should vote the PPPDA’s proposal to apply a coefficient equal to the annual inflation rate for the previous year, not for the last six months as the government suggests.
