The injustice is so great that it physically hurts: the highest special pension in Romania is 58,191 lei. That is, 25 average pensions or 45 minimum pensions.
Instead of eliminating special pensions in 30 DAYS as it promised 5 YEARS ago through Rareș Bogdan, PNL, which meanwhile became a branch of PSD, saved special pensions for the next 40 YEARS. This is while pensioners who have worked all their lives are barely making ends meet, because PSD and PNL lies neither pay bills nor starve.
Various categories of “specials” receive, upon retirement, much more than what they contributed. Some retire at 47-48 years old, others at 60 years old, for some the income from the last 2 years is taken into account, for others from the last months of activity, for some it is 80% of the average income, for others 65%, much different from the way non-special pensions are calculated.
Over 200,000 beneficiaries of special pensions
However, the number of specials increases from year to year and the expenses for them increase in one year, while for others in ten. In just 4 years, I get 50% more. It is the fault of some politicians who think that this is how they flatter themselves next to judges, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and officials of all kinds.
In addition, the more than 200,000 beneficiaries of special pensions can accumulate the special pension with the contributory pension and with possible income from wages. This while, in Romania governed by PSD and PNL, more than 1.1 million people are forced to live only on the minimum pension of 1,281 lei.
USR is the first and only party that constantly fought to correct the great injustice called special pensions. Among the first laws that the USR submitted after entering the Parliament was the law to eliminate the special pensions of parliamentarians. Other bills followed, all blocked by PSD and PNL, either directly in Parliament or through their representatives at the Constitutional Court.
Referendum on elimination of special pensions: why are PSD and PNL afraid of the voice of the Romanians?
Together with the partners from the United Right alliance, USR asked President Klaus Iohannis to let the Romanians decide on the subject of special pensions, a symbol of injustice and the failure of the single PSD-PNL party. Concretely, Dreapta Unită requested, as early as February, that a referendum on the elimination of special pensions be organized on June 9, following the model of 2019, when the president called the referendum for justice.
USR also launched a petition in this sense, signed by almost 140,000 Romanians (https://stoppensiispeciale.ro/).
However, PSD and PNL ignored the request, as they have been ignoring the citizens and their problems for many years. Those from PSD and PNL are simply afraid that the topic of special pensions will be discussed publicly. They don’t want all Romanians to find out, for example, that the country’s first special pensioner, Nicolae Ciucă, reached about 19,000 lei monthly or that some of the richest PSD politicians have piled up on the list of beneficiaries of special pensions and PNL: from Adrian Năstase, Călin Popescu Tăriceanu and the criminal Sorin Oprescu, sentenced for corruption to over 10 years in prison and a refugee in Greece, to Victor Ponta’s father-in-law, Ilie Sârbu, placed in the last years by the PSD in various financial positions, such as those of vice-president at the Court of Accounts and member of Romsilva’s CA.
How the law was changed
Specifically, to defend their privileges, PSD and PNL came up with a law that actually saves special pensions. Not only has no special pension been abolished, but the privileges are maintained for a long time to come. Even over 20 years, the beneficiaries of special pensions will not all retire at 65, as is the case in the public system. Even beyond 20 years, special pensions will not be calculated based on the income of the entire career of 35 years, as it is in the public system. Moreover, in the last round of debates in the Parliament on the law to save special pensions, PSD and PNL made sure to increase the privileges of some categories “a little bit”: for magistrates, they also included non-permanent increases in the calculation basis and increased them by at 65% to 80% of the income the percentage for the auxiliary personnel in the judiciary. Last but not least, the PNRR is a contract until 2026, and PSD and PNL have submitted amendments whereby the law will be applied only from 2029. Lie, manipulation or hypocrisy?
What reform did the USR include in the PNRR
If the special pensions had been transferred to contributory, as provided for by the USR in the PNRR and as it emerged from the amendments submitted during the debates, a saving of approximately 6 billion lei would have been made. Instead, PSD and PNL preferred to increase taxes for employees and entrepreneurs again, after making two rounds of increases in 2022 and 2023.
For Ciolacu and Ciucă, the defense of the special and their privileges is a priority. That is why they are able, if they are allowed, to take from the sick and from mothers, to destroy the business environment with all kinds of aberrant taxes, to bury us in debt. It is our duty, all of us, not to let them steal our future!
