Bulgarian Parliament Adopts Retirement Requirements

Business » FINANCE | November 18, 2010, Thursday // 20:11
Bulgaria: Bulgarian Parliament Adopts Retirement Requirements Starting January 1, 2011, men's retrement age will be 63 and the years of service will be 37, while women;s retirement age will be 60 and the years of service 37. File photo

Bulgarian Parliament adopted on first reading the much debated amendments to the Social Insurance Code, which will enter into force on January 1, 2011.

The amendments were adopted on Thursday with support from 90 votes (from Bulgaria's ruling party GERB and the nationalist party Ataka), 37 votes against (from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the ethnic Turkish party DPS and the rightist Blue Coalition) and 3 abstained.

Starting next year, the new retirement requirements for men will include simultaneously minimum 37 years of service and age above 63. Women should be 60 years of age and should have 34 years of service.

From 2012, the years of service for retirement will start increasing by 4 months a year.

The most discussed amendments were the ones regarding the changes in the age and years of service for people from first and second category labor and the drop of the old-age allowances.

Bulgaria's Labor Minister, Totyu Mladenov, has announced that the amendments were negotiated between the social partners and the cabinet and have met "broad public support."

GERB and Ataka have also supported the pension reform, saying that this is the first time when Bulgaria has a long-term strategy for 25 years ahead.

According to Hasan Ademov from the ethnic Turkish party DPS, the pension reform could be viewed as a way of the ruling party to ensure their own comfort before the local and presidential elections.

In his words, the date January 1, 2012, which is envisioned to be the start of the increase of the retirement years of service, was not chosen by chance, but is rather selected to be after the elections.

"You transfer all unpopular measures to the next governments," Ademov told GERB.

According to Maya Manolova from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the reform was made against and despite of the people.

"It is a huge delusion that the changes have been backed up after a broad public discussion," she said. 

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Tags: retirement reform, pension reform, Retirement age, years of service, GERB, Ataka, Bulgarian Socialist Party, DPS, Blue Coalition, Totyu Mladenov

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