Bulgaria - Agreement reached on pension reform - November 3, 2010

On 1 November government, employers and trade unions finally reached an agreement on the reform of the country's pension system, ending a month of negotiations. The reform stipulates an increase, starting from 1 January 2010, by four months in the number of work experience years needed for full retirement benefits so that by 2020, men would need 40 years of work experience to retire and women would need 37 years. After January 2021, the retirement age would start increasing by six months to reach 63 years for women and 65 years for men. Trade unions, which were threatening strikes over any increase in the work experience requirement before 2015, said they were pleased with the agreement (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 October 2010).

English: http://www.sofiaecho.com/2010/11/02/985912_bulgarias ...;

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-01/bulgaria-unions-agree ...

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2010.