No intention to eliminate early retirement, increase minimum contribution time

The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection (MMPS) announced on Monday evening that there is no intention to eliminate early retirement or to increase the minimum contribution time to 35 years.

MMPS clarifications come after information in the public space alleged government's intention to increase the minimum contribution time and to repeal early retirement.

"MMPS has started a comprehensive reform of the pension system, with the first step being the evaluation of all state pension files in order to recalculate pensions. The recalculation of pensions will be done under a legislative change, so that lower pensions, based on a formula that brings more contributory factors, will grow faster than higher pensions. At the moment, there is a working group looking into the available data as well as different working options," the ministry says in a statement posted on its website.

Regarding the information released in the public space, according to which "the government wants to increase the minimum pension contribution time from 25 years to 35 years," MMPS says that under Law 263/2010, the minimum contribution period is 15 years, for both women and men, not 25 years, and "there is no discussion to increase it."

"The minimum contribution time is the minimum amount of time provided for by law in which the insured complete the contribution time in order to qualify for a state pension upon reaching the standard retirement age. The full contribution time is the period of time provided for by law in which the insured complete the contribution time in order to qualify for an old-age pension, early retirement or partial early retirement pension. For the correct information of the public, 35 years is the full contribution time for both women and men, so the statement regarding the intention of the government to increase the minimum time to 35 years is absurd," Labour Ministry representatives inform.

Regarding the new calculation system, which would eliminate the correction index, the ministry maintains that the possibility of including this index under a certain form in the future pension calculation formula is being analysed.

"At the same time, MMPS has not initiated any discussion and there is no intention to eliminate early retirement," they say.

According to the ministry, the improvement of the legislation and the completion of the evaluation process of all the files is design to recalculate almost 5 million pensions taking into account additional contributory components, so that pensioners with similar training and seniority have equal pensions.