Parliament’s special committees have greenlit the 2021 state and social
security budget bills in the form presented by the Government. A final vote
will be given in Tuesday’s plenary sitting. As regards the law on the salaries
of public sector employees, Labor Minister Raluca Turcan said the form
conceived by Labor Ministry will also stipulate a few basic principles on
calculating salaries and which bonuses can have a set value or can be
discarded. The Romanian official said there are certain categories of employees
who receive additional bonuses worth 85% of their salaries, and that under the
new law all useless bonuses will be eliminated, such as the bonus for
neuro-psychological stress conditions or confidentiality bonuses, and some
incomes will be frozen while other lower incomes will benefit from a faster
increase. The Government will look into another bill drafted by the Labor
Ministry banning the aggregation of pensions with state-paid salaries. Raluca
Turcan said that, considering the existence of a significant trend among
public sector employees who retire and later get a job in the public sector,
the Ministry wants to give public sector employees the possibility of working
until a later point in their life, without, however, benefitting from an
aggregate payment of both pensions and salaries. In turn, Prime Minister Florin
Cîţu says bill elaborated by the Labor Ministry is very good and a normal
undertaking, and every person must decide which of two to opt for.
It is a bill we’ve discussed within our coalition. I find it to be very
good. You know we’ve tried to implement it last year as well. I believe it is
normal, when you retire, to decide whether you want to be paid a pension or
stay hired in the public sector, in which case you renounce your pension.
The system was previously introduced by the Boc Cabinet in 2009, in the
context of the global recession, for any incomes exceeding a certain ceiling.
Teachers were exempted from the rule, but eventually the law was abrogated in
2014 by the Government led by Victor Ponta. With respect to this new bill, some
managers said they are seeking complementary solutions. Education Minister Sorin
Cîmpeanu said the education sector allows for hourly payments to keep teachers in
the department after they retire, otherwise the number of unqualified teachers
would increase. In this sense, Minister Turcan said the bill stipulates certain
measures to prevent the blocking of key sectors. The Social-Democrats in
opposition have harshly criticized the initiative. Senator Gabriela Firea
posted on social media that the draft law is in fact a condemnable attempt at
increasing the retirement age to 70. (V.P.)