Turcan: No discussion about raising retirement age and contribution period, we reject amateurism of some politicians

Minister of Labor Raluca Turcan declared on Tuesday that the increase of the retirement age has not been discussed and "it is absurd" to circulate the idea of 'the increase of the 15-year minimum contribution period, mentioning that she rejects any speculations in this sense, and "the amateurism of some politicians, who either use working documents or follow the old technique of disinformation." "First of all, I would like to clarify some information that has appeared in the public space. In the PNRR [the National Recovery and Resilience Plan] there are two major reform components - on pensions and the pay system in the public system. These reforms are being worked on at the Ministry against the clock and we have different versions. For both components of the reform, after the Ministry comes up with its own vision, the result of the social dialogue, we will also call on specialized consultancy, so that the final version responds to some principles that we have assumed," said Turcan, in Parliament, after the meeting of the National Liberal party (PNL) leadership. She mentioned that the important principles are those of equity and sustainability of the pension and pay system. "It seems natural to us, since we keep talking about reform, then two fundamental public systems should removed from decision makers' hands and have a predictable calculation system, including as a weighted share in GDP. These are the components we are talking about and based on which we are relaying all the data to Brussels. We reject any kind of speculations and especially the amateurism of politicians who either use working documents or follow the old disinformation technique and simply try to instil a state of tension among the people, essentially those most affected and who are deserving of these reforms," Turcan added. She said there was no discussion about raising the retirement age, but about the option of staying in the working life, which is "totally different". "By basically looking at the numbers that we have, we see that over 100,000 people over the age of 65 prefer to stay in the working life. We have thought about leaving this option. And it's a very important matter, including from the perspective of reform," the minister mentioned. "Regarding the contribution period, it is absurd to say or someone to go out in the public space and spread the idea of the increase of the 15-year minimum contribution period, given that now the maximum contribution period is 35 years. So, there are some whoppers that you wonder how much more they can roll them the public space," Turcan added. The Labor Minister specified that, including in the documents of the European Commission, the Government assumed that the reform measures will be completed towards the end of 2022.AGERPRES(RO - author: Alina Novaceanu, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)