Interior Minister Lucian Bode said on Thursday that after reading “Article 215” of the PNRR on the reform of the state pension system, he did not conclude that it refers to military pensions.

Actually, this is the milestone under number 215, which concerns special pensions.

“Yesterday, during the Government meeting, the Minister of Labor presented an information note, not a memorandum, not a regulatory act. (…) The Minister of Defense and I had a different position than the Minister of Labor. I said very clearly, I read Article 215 several times PNRR is a reform of the state pension system, and absolutely nowhere did I understand that it was about military pensions,” Bode said at the MAI headquarters.

He showed that at the meeting of the Government he spoke about what a long-service pension is, which means an occupational pension, which is something different from special pensions.

“I defined and showed what a retirement pension is, what a labor pension is, why it was introduced by law 223, what were the arguments of the legislator when he came and said that the military, gendarmes, policemen and so on, they are stuck in a certain activity during the activity – they do not have the right to conduct business, they do not have the right to association, and the legislator established that after the end of their career, military personnel receive a professional pension, Pension for years of service, which is not based on the principle of contributions, but on according to the principle established by the legislator, namely on the average size of the last six salaries,” Bode also stated.

He clarified that an important issue in the case of occupational pensions is that no pension exceeds the registered income, the average income, while in the case of special pensions, in addition to the pension from the state system, the citizen concerned also benefits from an allowance – “which can clearly be considered special pension income”.

“On the other hand, when we talk about MAI, yesterday we had 100,222 pensioners and we showed that almost half of them have pensions of less than 4,000 and about 13,000 pensioners have pensions of less than 2,000 lei. I don’t think we can talk about special pensions of less than 2,000 lei,” Bode also noted.

He added that the ministers of the security system will present a common point of view, in which they will show what is the difference between professional, service and special pension.

“I agree with the reform of the state pension system. There are many injustices in the system, but we must understand that the military pays CAS, CNASS, taxes and benefits from this legal provision for an average of six months of operation. Reform is needed, taxation is needed if this is the final solution, (…) I don’t want those who have special pensions in Romania to hide behind the careers of some soldiers who benefit from military pensions,” said Bode , which is quoted by Agerpres.

What milestone 215 entails

The new legislative framework will review special pensions and bring them into line with the contributory principle.

• New categories of special pensions will not be created, and existing categories will be rationalized.
• Special pensions are currently calculated on the basis of the principle of contribution, length of service in the profession and correction of the percentage related to the received income. The minimum contribution period is similar to that used in the state pension fund.
• The protection of the decisions of the Constitutional Court will only apply to magistrates’ pensions, not to other categories, and will only apply to clear limitations in the Court’s reasoning.
• No special pension can exceed the income earned during the contribution period.