The Pensioners Together Bloc (BUZ), a coalition of pensioners' parties, said on Sunday that if media reports about the government's plan to freeze pensions proved true, it would reconsider its participation in the National Council for Pensioners and Elderly People.
The coalition said in a statement that it could not accept statements that there was no room for pension growth, recalling that in its economic and social programme it had stated that pension growth was possible only if budgetary spending was rationalised.
BUZ said it had asked the government to revoke its decision on a pension freeze and find an additional 60 million kuna, which is how much the unfreezing of pension growth would cost this year.
BUZ said its proposal had been accepted in principle so it did not know why it was now being refused.
It called on the government to start with the pension reform, abolish the decision freezing pension growth, make the status of pensioners who went into retirement after January 1, 1999 (the so-called new pensioners) the same as that of those who retired before that date, and to immediately abolish all 14 laws under which certain categories are entitled to privileged pensions and proscribe that all workers must go into retirement in line with the Pension Insurance Act.
