Bulgaria - Final decision due on pension reform - October 27, 2010

Government, employers and trade unions are in the process of another attempt to finally reach an agreement on the steps to overhaul the country's pension system. Only the increase in social contributions payment by 1.8% percentage-points was agreed during the meeting of the so-called National Council for Tripartite Cooperation on Sunday 17 October. No consensus was reached on the number of years one has to work before drawing a full pension – whether this period starts to increase by four months as of 2013, as the government proposed, or as of 2015, as the trade unions demand. The decision was initially due on Wednesday 27 October, but was further delayed due to the additional information that employers demanded from Finance Minister Simeon Djankov. Earlier, on 7 October, over 10,000 protested in front of the Bulgarian Parliament in Sofia, opposing the government plan to raise the retirement age. The rally was organised by the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions.

English: http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=121265;  http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=121541;

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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 atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.