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Mihal Says Pension Freeze Will Not Solve Anything
Wednesday 21 July 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, July 21 (TASR) - Minister of Labour, Social Affairs and Family Jozef Mihal said Wednesday he was opposed to the freezing of pensions as one of the measures designed to consolidate public finances recommended to Slovakia by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"A pension freeze will not solve anything. It would on one hand be a paltry saving in public finances and on the other we cannot afford this vis-a-vis retirees," he told reporters after government's weekly policy meeting.
"We will certainly hold negotiations about indexing pensions (to inflation). My idea is to incorporate an element of solidarity into indexing so that lower pensions be indexed by a higher percentage than those that are high," he said.
He went on to say that all pensions must be indexed. "It cannot be done like in 2005 when the Constitutional Court ruled that pensions upwards of a certain sum may not be indexed," he said.
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