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Zagreb - The ruling coalition and opposition parties in Parliament on Wednesday welcomed the government's proposal to repeal the 10% reduction of preferential pensions, introduced in 2010, which would increase pensions for about 96,000 pensioners, including 63,000 Homeland War veterans.
"How many of these pensions are Partisan pensions and pensions received by people who fought against Croatia? How many Homeland War veterans have died since 2010 without seeing this 10% reinstated?" MP Stipo Mlinarić (Homeland Movement) asked Labour Minister Marin Piletić. "Give us the numbers. Don't stigmatise Homeland War veterans as sole recipients of preferential pensions," the MP added.
Piletić replied that he did not have the number of war veterans who have died in the meantime, adding that among 33,000 others, retired military personnel, police officers, demining specialists and firefighters made up the majority.
Nineteen categories of pensioners receive pensions under special rules and three of these categories were not covered by the 10% reduction, namely Homeland War disabled veterans, children of veterans killed in the war, coal miners from Istria, and persons professionally exposed to asbestos.
The preferential pensions, higher than HRK 3,500 (€464) a month, were reduced by 10% and the government is now proposing that this crisis measure be abolished, the minister said.
MP Majda Burić (HDZ) calculated that recipients of preferential pensions would receive an increase of nearly €100 on average.
MP Branko Grčić (SDP) challenged the data that pensions had increased by 24% in nominal terms in the last six years, saying that excluding inflation, pensions had risen by merely 6.7%, or 1% annually, which was too little.
MP Marijana Puljak (Centre) asked the minister if the government was concerned that the worker-pensioner ratio was currently 1.29:1, the third worst in the EU, to which Piletić said that the ratio was actually 1.31:1.
Piletić said that a task force had been set up to analyse the existing pension system and propose to the government what should be changed.
He said that in December 2016 the average pension was about HRK 2,500 (€332) and this March it was HRK 3,473 or €461. With five one-off payments to about 700,000 pensioners with the lowest pensions, that is the annual increase of more than 20%, Piletić said.