Minister of Labor and Social Solidarity Simona Bucura-Oprescu announced that the new legislative initiative on pensions will be approved by the executive on November 9 and passed by the legislature by November 20, News.ro reports. In terms of impact, a budget package of 13.84 billion lei is required for implementation starting September 1, i.e. 55.36 billion lei for the four months from September to December.

“The draft pension law is open until November 9. Our ambition is for it to be adopted by the Government on November 9, after which we will come to you so that together we have an accelerated parliamentary course to complete the parliamentary calendar of the reform of the state pension system, an important law for Romanians, by November 20. In terms of impact, a budget package of 13.84 billion lei is required for implementation starting from September 1, i.e. 55.36 billion lei for 4 months, from September to December. Maybe there will be pensions that will increase by 1%, maybe there will be pensions that will increase by 80%, but our calculations show that we will have an average increase in pensions by 40%,” said the Minister of Labor.

She also informed that this pension law will come into effect from the beginning of January next year and then the amount of the pension will be 2,032 lei.

We remind you that 2024 is the most important election year for our country, in which European, local, parliamentary and presidential elections will be held.

Pension score 2032 from January 1

“To give a 13.8% increase, which also meets the current conditions of the Swiss formula law, with the rate of inflation plus 50% of the real increase in the average gross salary, over the period we are talking about, has been negative, which means that we remain with an increase in the pension score by 13.8%. This means that if we now have 1,785 pension points, then from January 1 there will be 2,032.

Pensions are 40% higher

Bukura explains that the September 1 deadline is set because the ministry is in the deep stages of digitizing pension cases, with more than four million already digitized.

“After the adoption of the law by the parliament, we need a period during which the rules of application of the law will be developed and approved. According to the application rules, we need an acquisition period, procedure, system software that allows the application of the new law. After that, we need a period during which the colleagues from the territorial pension houses effectively apply the new law and, based on the data in the system, list the pensions of all Romanians, give them the decision, after which every Romanian receives their new pension coupon from September 1,” said Simona Bukura -Opresku

The SDP minister added that this draft law contains provisions on pensions and minimum social assistance and added that the legislative initiative encourages contributions and work.

“Thanks to this formula, the 1,200,000 Romanians receiving the minimum social assistance will have a favorable situation, in which after applying the formula they will have 87.4% more, i.e. 1,960 lei, compared to 1,825 lei if they worked for 35 years. years on the minimum wage in the economy. In other words, this formula, which encourages work with stability points, will lead to the adequacy of small pensions and lead to an increase in pensions, according to our calculations, by an average of 40%,” Bukura-Oprescu explained.

Cholaku: Pensions will increase twice next year. But we have to fulfill the condition

Next year, pensions will increase twice: the first time – on January 1 through indexation by 13.8%, the second time – on September 1 after the completion of the recalculation process in accordance with the law, the Prime Minister said on Thursday. “We are the first government that did both indexation and recalculation in one year. But we have to fulfill one condition – to resort to the adoption of this law in the parliament by November 20,” Çolaku said.

“You know very well that the adoption of this law by November 20 depends on the revision of the PNRR regarding the cancellation of the threshold of 9.4% of GDP for pensions, and I would not like it because of certain blockages, especially in the Government, of pensioners. justice is not served or their pensions are frozen, as some in the PNRR have done, until 2070,” Marcel Cholaku said on Thursday.

He also said that the implementation of the main tasks of PNRR is not mandatory for any ministry. Çolaku emphasized that there are several outstanding stages and that after the government meeting they will be discussed in detail so that payment request No. 3 can be finalized and sent to the European Commission.

The main changes were agreed upon in the Coalition

On Tuesday evening, the Ministry of Labor began a public discussion of the new draft law on the state pension system

• SEE THE PROJECT HERE

According to it, contribution periods of more than 25 years will be rewarded with additional points, respectively:

• 0.50 points/year for years of contribution from the interval 26-30 inclusive;
• 0.75 points/year for years of contribution from the interval 31-35 inclusive;
• 1 point/year, starting from the 36th year of contribution.

Non-permanent contribution allowances will be calculated on pension, respectively global agreement, hourly pay, thirteenth pay, rewards, etc.

Women with several children, lowering the retirement age

Women with many children will benefit from lowering the generally accepted retirement age. Thus, discounts are provided for mothers who have given birth to and raised children under the age of 16:

• Child: 6 months
• Two children: one year
• Three children: one year and six months
• Four children: two years
• Five children: two years and six months
• Six children: three years
• Seven children and more: three years and six months

The reduction of the retirement age also applies to women who adopted children and raised them up to 14 years of age.

Persons working under conditions of serious or pronounced disability will receive an additional number of contribution points with another fixed number of points, respectively 0.5 points, respectively 0.25 points for each year.

New pension calculation formula

The pension will be equal to the value of the reference point multiplied by the number of points. The base point value is the pension point value divided by 25, and the total number of pension points is made up of the number of contributory points, non-contributory points and stability points.

Within six months, a recalculation of all pensions in payment, for which there are documents on increase/inconstant paid income, will be carried out. When calculating the pension, the gross income will be taken into account, from which the social insurance contribution has been withheld.

In a situation where, for various reasons, it is impossible to document these gross incomes, when calculating points, salaries from the labor book and permanent allowances are used, as now.

The increase formula takes into account the average annual rate of inflation, to which is added 50% of the real increase in the average accrued wages, the final figures known in the current year for the previous calendar year. The increase percentage and grant date are set annually by the State Social Security Budget Law and will be set according to income in BASS and inflation estimated by the INS for the previous year, according to the draft.

Starting with the entry into force of the new law, the amount of assistance will increase annually according to the same mechanism of increasing state pensions.

Types of pension provided by the draft law

• Old-age pension – subject to at least 15 years of experience;
• Disability pension – three degrees (severe, acute or medium) are retained, which will be redefined:
• first degree – serious functional insufficiency, loss of self-care ability;
• II degree – pronounced functional insufficiency and partially preserved ability to self-care
• III degree – average functional insufficiency with preservation of the ability to self-care;
• Early retirement – on the condition of full contribution experience of 35 years. (Early retirement is achieved with a maximum reduction of 5 years from the standard retirement age with a maximum penalty of 24% compared to the current 30%. / Periods without contributions will not be taken into account: unemployment, group benefits, etc..)
• Pension in connection with the loss of a breadwinner – the current provision is preserved.

What does the schedule for the adoption of the law look like and when will it enter into force

The draft of the new pension law should be submitted for public discussion within the next 10 days, and the parliament should adopt it by November 29.

The law will enter into force on January 1, 2024. At the first stage, pensions will increase once from January 1 by 13.8%, and then from September 1, 2024.

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