site.btaProposal for Lifting Retirement Age Not Supported

Proposal for Lifting Retirement Age Not Supported

Sofia, March 10 (BTA) - The proposal of the business to increase
retirement age by six months every year was not supported at
the serial round of talks on pension reform, Nikola Nikolov, an
Advisor of Minister of Labour and Social Policy Ivailo Kalfin,
said at a news briefing. Nikolov presented the opinions within
the Working Group on Pension Reform regarding the proposals of
the nationally representative employer organizations submitted
after February 20.

The proposal for a six-month step of increase of the retirement
age until reaching the age of 65 was not supported because,
initially, such a tangible increase would increase the pressure
on one and the same generation, Nikolov explained.

It transpired at the talks that the representatives of the
Interior Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the Armed Forces and
other special structures will submit their own proposals for the
retirement of the employees of these sectors. The participants
in the discussion also considered a proposal of the Association
of the Industrial Capital in Bulgaria to reconsider the
individual coefficient in the pension formula.

Nikolov also said that the employer organizations insisted to
keep the three-pillar pension model.

None of the participants in the Tuesday discussion backed the
business proposal to scrap second category of labour and change
the criteria for first category. The final ideas on pension
reform will be publicized in the end of March.