USR calls special state pensions unfair, vows to support action to repeal them

Save Romania Union (USR) officials have announced supporting any political action aimed at repealing special state pensions. "Whether it is the passage of a bill in an extraordinary session, as the Social Democratic Party (PSD) is now claiming it wants, or the National Liberal party (PNL) government taking responsibility for a piece of legislation, special state pensions must be repealed because they are unfair, iniquitous and defying millions of state pensioners who draw pensions against the principle of contribution," USR said Tuesday in a Facebook post. According to the post, for over two years, USR has made every effort in Parliament to repeal the special pensions, pointing to two bills submitted in September 2017 and October 2017. The first one concerned the special pensions of lawmakers, while the second one provides for the repeal of seven categories of special state pensions and capping pensions of magistrates and service people. USR says another emergency is the two-round mayoral elections. "Despite the repeated requests of the USR lawmakers, the majority controlled by the PSD in the leadership of the Chamber of Deputies refused at the end of the last session to put the USR bill on the agenda of the plenary session. If an extraordinary session is convened, the matter must also be addressed, and politicians from all parties will have the opportunity to show, by vote, whether or not they fear their own voters." USR also calls for the unblocking of the citizens' initiative "No convicts in public offices." "Keeping it concealed by the same majority controlled by the PSD is nothing more that defying the over one million Romanians who have signed for purging the political class of convicts permanently," says USR. AGERPRES (RO - author: Georgiana Tanasescu, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)