The Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family assures that it will soon propose a mechanism to efficiently ensure the social protection of the persons with low pensions, Deputy Minister of Labor Laura Grecu told a news conference, IPN reports.

The deputy minister reminded that all the pensions and state social allowances were indexed on April 1. The indexation coefficient was 10.1%. This was calculated based on the 10.1% rise in the average official salary and the inflation rate of 9.7% in 2015. For judges, prosecutors and public servants, the indexation included only the part of the pension that is paid from the state social insurance budget.

Laura Grecu said the coefficient of 10.1% is the highest one in the last five years. The old-age pensions were increased by 62 lei and almost 120 lei, depending on the category. But many of the pensioners were excluded from the list that enabled them to benefit from the state financial support instituted in 2013. At the beginning, the state financial support was 50, 60 and 90 lei, while now is 100, 120 and 180 lei.

“At the start of 2015 the Ministry suggested overcoming this situation by instituting the basic pension instead of the state financial support. The basic pension was to be provided to all the recipients of old-age pension, regardless of the size of the pension, as a lump sum. Though the bill was approved by all the interested institutions, it wasn’t adopted because of shortage of funds,” stated the deputy minister.

“The Ministry is now analyzing different possibilities and will soon suggest a mechanism that we hope will be accepted. It is not easy because about 81% of the recipients of old-age pensions and approximately 89% of the recipients of disability pensions benefit from state financial support.”

The state financial support in 2015 came to 1.15 billion lei, as opposed to 824 million lei in 2014 and 374 million lei in 2013.