Pension payments will be subject to valorisation as early as in 2023, with a special hike in parental state benefits to be introduced in August, according to an amendment to the Social Insurance Act sponsored by Sme Rodina (We Are Family) MPs and approved by Parliament on Tuesday.
Political parties perceive the extraordinary increase in pensions from July 1, 2023 differently, responding with several amendments.
OLANO party welcomes the approval of the amendment. "I want to thank everyone who supported this bill. I'm sorry that the others, who didn't vote, didn't join us. It's a nice step towards pensioners. The topic of 'not helping' pensioners must disappear now," party leader Igor Matovic said at a briefing.
"This is specific help to people, this is real social democracy. In difficult times, the state must be able to help the weakest, among whom seniors certainly belong. Each of them will have a pension that is more than 10 percent higher as of July, so that they can cope more easily with drastic price increases," stated head of the extra-parliamentary Hlas-SD (Voice-SD) party Peter Pellegrini.
"Unfortunately, everyone, except for MPs for the Democrats party, created an estimated €600 million debt in Parliament today. It's extremely irresponsible, everyone likes to give away, but a responsible person must say from what they will pay it. Once again, the people will pay it out from their taxes. We'll lack it in the restoration of hospitals, kindergartens and road construction," MP and chairman of the non-parliamentary Democrats party Eduard Heger said in response.
In the final vote, the proposal of Erik Tomas (Independent MP from Hlas-SD) for an earlier possibility of an extraordinary increase in pensions as of July 1 of this year was also passed. Until now, the regulations in force made it possible to take into account high inflation in pensions during the year only as late as January 1, 2024.
Source: TASR
