site.btaLabour and Social Policy Minister Kalfin Confers with Director-General of EC's DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Servoz

Labour and Social Policy Minister Kalfin Confers with Director-General of EC's DG Employment, Social
Affairs and Inclusion Servoz


Sofia, December 3 (BTA) - Labour and Social Policy Minister
Ivailo Kalfin conferred Wednesday with the Director-General of
EC's DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Michel Servoz,
Kalfin's party said in a press release.

The two discussed in detail the plans of the Bulgarian
government about the pension reform. Servoz congratulated the
cabinet on the approval of the first operational programme for
the new programming period, Human Resources.

Kalfin said that the initial proposals for the pension will be
summarized by the end of the week, while a considerable part of
the measures related to the reform will be adopted by the end of
the year. Kalfin assured his host that maximum efforts will be
made to attain broad consensus on the overall parameters of the
pension reform which will continue to be discussed in the longer
term (length of service for entitlement to retirement, labour
categories, amount of the contributions in the pension fund,
etc.).

Kalfin and Servoz also discussed ideas to bind the retirement
age with longevity, identify mechanisms for stabilizing the
pension system so that pensioners get good pensions despite the
relatively poor demographic indicators in Bulgaria at the
moment.

On the agenda of the talks was also work with poor people and
with people threatened by poverty. Servoz voiced concern that
the expenditure allocated to tackle poverty fails to yield
tangible results and people continue to stay in this group.
Kalfin for his part said that the low wages in Bulgaria and the
high number of working poor people do not create incentives for
advancing from the social system to the labour market.

The Brussels official assessed as a very good economic measure
the increase of the minimum wage, despite the economic crisis.

A representative of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
will visit Bulgaria at the start of next year to study in detail
the social problems here. According to Kalfin, one such problem
stems from the absence of private employers in some areas which
renders meaningless training in new skills and the motivation
for them. Servoz said this was an extremely apt observation
which should be analysed and discussed in order to have
meaningful social programmes for such people.