The law to lower the retirement age that was adopted by the tacit PSRM-Shor coalition last December will be reviewed. Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița described the decision by the previous government as fully populist and made it clear that that retirement age will be increased as it will be impossible to pay pensions to a larger number of recipients when there is a reduced number of employees, IPN reports.
Natalia Gavrilița said the increasing of the minimum pension to 2,000 lei promised in the election campaign will become a reality on October 1 and they bank on the funds announced by the foreign financial partners in this regard.
“A large part of the budget deficit was to be covered with foreign funds. But the former government did nothing for these funds to be absorbed. Therefore, we now hurry to adopt the bills needed for unlocking the second tranche of €50 million of the macro-financial assistance provided by the European Union. The money will go to finance the budget. Furthermore, we are expecting US$236 million from the IMF. This money will help us to balance the budget and to allocate the sum need to raise the pensions,” Natalia Gavrilița stated in the program “Friday with Anatolie Golea” on RTR Moldova channel.
The Premier admitted that when the budget is stiff, the authorities cannot keep the law to lower the retirement age that was adopted by the PSRM-Shor MPs of the previous legislature. The law is to take effect on January 1, 2022 and this exerts additional pressure on the state budget.
“The law should be reviewed. It was an irresponsible decision as we now have 700,000 recipients of pensions and the ratio of employees to recipients of pensions is almost 1:1. We must realize that if we do not have jobs and the young people leave the country, we will be unable to provide increased pensions and to allow for early retirement. We intend to raise the subject of retirement now and to create an option for the persons to retire when they decide, as in other states,” said Natalia Gavrilița.
The law to lower the retirement age that was adopted by the tacit PSRM-Shor coalition last December stipulates that the retirement age as from January 1, 2022 will be 62 for men and 57 for women. Even if the law was passed without the Government’s appraisal, it wasn’t challenged in the Constitutional Court by MPs, as it happened in the case of the other laws adopted by the PSRM-Shor MPs in a hurry without having been examined by the Executive first.
