The "Șor" party demands a 30 percent indexation of pensions
The "Șor" party contested the social insurance law at the Constitutional Court. Deputy Marina Tauber stated that pension indexation should exceed 30 percent. The formation led remotely by Ilan Şor brought the pensioners to the streets. Dan Perciun from PAS explained that the opposition's approach was populist because the government offered aid to mitigate the impact of price increases.
Through the Social Security Law for 2023, the parliament established that pensions would not be indexed in correlation with the rate of inflation. Therefore, the indexation coefficient depends on the own revenues of the social insurance budget. In past years, this fund was subsidised by the state to the extent of approximately 40 percent. 2023 is no exception either, the social insurance budget totals over 38 billion lei, but 44 percent represent transfers from the state budget. The socialists were the first to demand that the indexation of pensions coincide with the inflation rate, and now the deputies of the "Șor" Party addressed the Constitutional Court.
"Never in the history of our country has pensions been indexed less than inflation. But this year the pensions will be indexed by 14.1 percent instead of over 30 percent", says MP Marina Tauber.
Tauber went to the Parliament and the Presidency, where the "Șor" Party organised a pensioners' protest.
"We talk and talk about Europe and nothing is received. There is money for armaments. But there is no money for you."
Last year, pensions were indexed by 14 percent. Approximately the same coefficient will be used this year. However, the president of the parliamentary committee for social protection, Dan Perciun, told Moldova 1 that there were complementary programs, and the indexation of pensions must be viewed as a whole. Energy compensations for pensioners exceed 1,500 lei on average. Similarly, during the cold season, people with low pensions benefit from 700 lei per month, and in October they received 1,500 lei - a one-time aid.
According to Dan Perciun, the minimum pension increased by 92 percent compared to October 2021, from 1,188 to 2,278 lei. The average pension increased by 53 percent, exceeding the rate of inflation. The government will approve new support policies, says deputy Perciun.
In 2022, the average annual inflation rate was 28.74 percent. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the payment of energy compensation mitigated the effect of price increases by 2.6 percent.
Moldova 1 reminds its viewers that the Constitutional Court is going to examine the outlawing of the "Șor" Party, a group that was qualified by the American government as an instrument of influence of the Russian Federation and included in the list of international sanctions. Likewise the leader of the party, Ilan Şor, who is also on the British government's blacklist for acts of corruption. Deputy Șor is under criminal investigation in Chișinău, the file in which he is accused of money laundering in the context of bank fraud is being examined at the Court of Appeal in his absence. Şor is in Israel, he recently hired a law firm from Great Britain to defend his interests in the Republic of Moldova.
