On Tuesday, the UDR launched a campaign against special pensions. In this context, the president of the USR, Katelin Drula, announced that his party will submit a bill that proposes to abolish special pensions for employees who were political police.

Cătălin Drula, USR President – Special Pension Conference Photo: Captura HotNews.ro

“There are 25 days left until the Government has to cancel special pensions, cancel them, as indicated in the milestone and period of validity of the PNRR. Special pensions make up 1% of GDP from gross domestic product, which is more than, for example, the budget allocated to research, which is 0.16% of GDP. And another unfair figure that is unknown – the special pension is 8.8 times higher than the average pension based on contributions. So not all citizens are equal, especially in the eyes of Nico and Marcel’s government. (…) We are talking about an impact of 1 billion lei in the budget,” USR president Katelin Drula said.

Drula announced that USR MPs would submit a legislative initiative to parliament this month that would propose the abolition of special pensions for military personnel who were political police. According to him, 1,300 former employees of the security service and the police, who receive special pensions, were under attack.

“It is absolutely disgusting that security guards, who carried out terror in the name of a totalitarian regime, today receive special pensions from the Romanian state. There are people who brought terror, fear, broke destinies and who today defiantly receive special pensions from the democratic Romanian state. They continue to be special agents of this state even after 1989 (…) Many of them are still alive who have received a final verdict from the courts that they were security agents and carried out activities through which they suppressed or limited human rights and fundamental freedoms, in order to support the communist government. These criminals continue to be privileged persons of democratic Romania. In what normal country of the free world do those who killed in the name of totalitarian ideologies continue to receive privileges?”, says Katalin Drula.

At the same time, the UDR asks the parliament to immediately vote on the laws on canceling pensions for mayors and deputies, both bills are in the parliamentary procedure.