site.btaReformist Bloc Urge GERB to Withdraw Motion Changing Retirement Insurance Model

Reformist Bloc Urge GERB to Withdraw
Motion Changing Retirement Insurance
Model


Sofia, December 18 (BTA) - The Reformist Bloc Thursday called on
GERB, who are their partners in the governing coalition, to
withdraw proposed legislative amendments that, in their opinion,
change the retirement insurance model.

Earlier this week MPs of GERB entered a motion according to
which persons born after December 31, 1959 should be able to
choose, on a single occasion within one year of entering the
system, whether to have their supplementary compulsory
retirement insurance handled by the National Social Security
Institute (NSSI) in a first pillar pay-as-you-go system or by a
private universal pension fund in a second pillar fully-funded
system.

"Unless you withdraw this motion, the tenure of the second
Borissov Cabinet will be domed to mistrust and failure,"
Reformist Bloc Co-floor Leader Radan Kanev warned in a
declaration read in Parliament.

He specified that the threat to withdraw their confidence does
not come from those sitting on the right-hand side of the
debating chamber. "The people down in the street, who placed
their confidence in us, will withdraw it and from then on our
governance will no longer be stable," he insisted.

"Without any intervention on our part, the residents of Sofia
are rallying today to a protest against the way these measures
were proposed," Kanev pointed out. He specified that the motions
were not coordinated at the NSSI Supervisory Board and with the
social partners, were not discussed and approved by the Council
of Ministers. "This change was not coordinated even at the
National Assembly Social Policy Committee, and the Ministry of
Labour and Social Policy has not issued an opinion," Kanev
added. "The motion was entered [by GERB MPs] in gross violation
of the decision-making rules agreed between the partners in the
[ruling parliamentary] majority and between the coalition
partners," he argued further on. "By this conduct in Parliament,
you are ruining the spirit of trust among the partners in the
majority and the spirit of dialogue, concession and political
humility we have been trying to cultivate since the first day of
the life of the 43rd National Assembly," he said. Kanev thanked
for the apology offered by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov for
Wednesday's behaviour of Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov. On
Wednesday Goranov said that "parties which have won 4-5 per cent
in the elections may choose to support GERB's decisions or not,
but the responsibility for the financial standing of the State
rests with GERB, which was mandated to form a cabinet."

The Reformist Bloc Co-floor Leader noted that for more than a
decade now the direction of the pension reform has not been
questioned either by the social partners or by the principal
political forces. "Now, after a hasty informal meeting between
part of the power-holders and the trade unions, we are asked to
consider blitz amendments to the Social Insurance Code that
radically change the underlying idea of the pension model," he
pointed out.

National Assembly Budget and Finance Committee Chair Menda
Stoyanova MP of GERB said that Kanev is talking all the time
about a change of the pension model in Bulgaria but there is no
such change. She explained that the pension model includes the
NSSI as a pay-as-you-go fund plus voluntary retirement insurance
as a third pillar. Stoyanova said that the State has ordered
citizens born after 1959 to have 5 per cent of their
contributions remitted to a private pension fund. "What we
propose is not a change of the model, we give those born after
1959 the right to choose a model according to which they will
retire: to decide whether they will avail themselves of the
first and second pillar or will give up the second pillar and
will stay with the first one, where the rest of the Bulgarian
citizens (those born before 1959) are," she specified. In her
words, the risk is not incurred by the politicians but by every
single individual, which is why people should have the right of
choice.

* * *

The Bulgarian Democratic Centre (BDC) MPs will not support the
contemplated amendments to the Public Social Insurance Budget
Act, BDC Co-floor Leader Svetlin Tanchev told a news briefing in
Parliament on Thursday after his parliamentary group met with
employers' organizations. According to Tanchev, the
Cabinet-proposed amendments are "non-market and will not lead to
a positive change". "This Government is trying to shift the
weight and the burden onto business rather than squeeze it out
of corruption and smuggling," he said. The BDC insist on a broad
debate about the reform that would result in sustained
solutions. BDC leader Nikolay Barekov noted that if this motion
is carried, in his capacity as Member of the European Parliament
he will approach the President of the European Commission about
a breach of market rules in Bulgaria. Barekov sees what he
calls a "floating majority" in Parliament as exceedingly
dangerous because it deprives Bulgaria's legislature of a
genuine opposition. "GERB form all sorts of coalitions for each
decision: once they come to terms with the Movement for Rights
and Freedoms, and next time with the Bulgarian Socialist Party.
We don't have an opposition and, worse yet, we may well lose
civil society," he argued. PK/LG

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