Many Romanians are in a situation where they will retire either in Romania or in another EU country. They have the right to a public pension, so the period worked will be taken into account regardless of their place of stay.

For example, if you settled in another country, you will receive a pension from there, if you returned to Romania, you will receive a pension from Romania.

Maria Luisa Socol Florescu, director of the international relations department of the National Public Pension Fund (CNPP), describes the procedure and the rights they have.

“Many of our labor migrants, people who have insurance experience in other EU countries, have also reached retirement age,” she said.

Where to apply for public pension

The application is submitted to one institution, she says.

What institution?

By place of permanent residence.

“All those who work abroad and have worked in Romania should understand that they should be addressed where they are currently working. This is the rule: the application for a pension can only be submitted to one institution in one member state,” she explained.

This institution will have access to the competent institutions of all Member States involved.

What is the place of permanent residence

The person is directed to submit an application to the institution at the place of permanent residence.

CAREFULLY: People must distinguish between a place of residence confirmed by an identity document that is valid and certifies that they live in Romania, and a place of habitual residence. The latter is very important in the application of all the provisions of the European coordination regulations.

“A person can have documents confirming that he lives in several countries. This is not relevant. In order to be able to manage, apply the rules of coordination, including determining the applicable law, we must correctly define the usual place of residence,” explained the representative of the CNPP.

Usual place of residence is determined by:

• The place where I carry out paid activities

• The place where the family is

• The place where I rented an apartment

• A place where I also do unpaid/volunteer work

What documents are important to confirm seniority

“When a person living abroad applies to a competent pension institution from another country and requests pension rights also in Romania, he must provide documents confirming work experience before 04/01/2001. After this date, the information is in the database,” she said.

As for the previous period, she says, it is necessary to provide the original document.

“Colleagues from institutions abroad know that they must send these documents in certified copies to match the original,” Maria Luisa Sokol Florescu explained.

What calculations are made by pension houses?

“Each involved institution, in which a person has insurance experience, conducts its own calculation of pension rights and assigns a pension taking into account the insurance experience that was also acquired in other states,” she notes.

• I do not interpret documents issued by employers from other countries, certificates, for example from Italy. I receive official confirmation in a standardized format about insurance experience completed under the legislation of another state.

“All competent institutions in all Member States involved must calculate the public pension. Each institution is obliged to do a double calculation when it is possible to calculate the national pension”, explained the CNPP representative.

Example: How to calculate public pension

“For example, the minimum contribution experience of a person in Romania is 15 years. They calculate the national pension and also calculate the public pension established according to the principle of pro rata temporis,” explained Maria Luisa Socol Florescu.

• It is carried out in two stages. I set the theoretical pension taking into account all insurance periods completed in all Member States (theoretical estimate multiplied by the ratio between the period of work in Romania and the period of work in other states). This is a calculation algorithm that allows me, as a competent pension institution, to determine for the relevant person the part of the pension that would accrue to him for the time he actually worked in Romania.

• They do not take into account contributions paid to the social insurance budget of another state. I only take into account the contributions paid in Romania and credit the periods abroad with the average value realized in Romania.

“The right to a pension is established by each competent institution. Decisions are made, they are sent to the person’s home and to the competent institution at the place of permanent residence,” said Florescu.

Where will they receive the money and how is the availability checked

“The relevant person has the right to obtain all his rights to the account he declares anywhere in the world. If he does not live in Romania, a person living abroad must be verified from the point of view of existence,” she said.

• We have a procedure that we apply annually through the life certificate.

“It is handed over at home, a deadline is set during which persons who receive the right to a pension abroad must return this certificate of life after it has been signed before a legal authority in the Member State of permanent residence,” said a representative of the CNPP.

IMPORTANTLY: If a person has completed mandatory insurance experience in the state, he should not come to Romania to conclude a social insurance contract.

“By summarizing the insurance periods and applying some matching rules, I still exclude the optional period of contributions to the state pension system in Romania. I will take into account the mandatory period in another state,” she said.

• I’m also doing the calculation for that social insurance contract that paid some rights in Romania, but it doesn’t pay off. I still count this period as time spent as a mandatory period in another state. I credit her when I calculate her public pension.

Where many Romanians are wrong

In practice, she says, everything is different.

According to her, there are people who are currently working in Spain, Italy, Great Britain, have property in the country, an identity document that is still valid in Romania: they move to Romania to apply because they think that in some moment they will move.

“Wrong! This creates big problems for us in coordinating pension cases,” says the representative of the Pension House.

• “If the application is submitted in Romania without specifying that they are currently working in the territory of another member state, we find that we are starting a public pension case, we implement it. At some point, we send him to the competent institution, where the person says that he has a previous insurance record.

• This institution asks us to close the file because we are not the contact institution, the institution where the application should have been submitted.

• After we switched to electronic data exchange, we can no longer change the institution where the application is submitted due to inter-institutional collaboration.”

“We have limitations imposed by the application in which we now transmit information electronically. When we receive such a response “you are not competent to accept the application”, we must close the case.

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