Croatian gov't set to reduce retirement age from 67 to 65
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E-mail Xinhua, September 20, 2019
ZAGREB, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced here on Thursday that the government has accepted the unions' request and will reduce the retirement age to 65 years from the current 67 years.
He said that the government would send Parliament a new draft of the Pension Insurance Act and change the Labor Act to enable those who wish to work part-time beyond the age of 65.
The unions' demands for less strict penalization of early retirement, and the right to early retirement at 60 years of age and after 35 years of service were accepted by the government.
The prime minister's announcement surprised representatives of the "67 is too much" initiative, who were threatening to organize a massive protest if the government fails to call a referendum on the retirement age. In June, the initiative submitted to Parliament more than 700,000 signatures in support of a referendum.
Mladen Novosel, leader of the Union of Autonomous Trade Unions of Croatia, said on Thursday that he still expects a referendum despite the prime minister's announcement.
"Why would we trust the prime minister and the government to do so, especially after the campaign they have conducted against our referendum initiative," Novosel said.
The initiative's other leader, Kresimir Sever, said that they will decide on the referendum in the coming days. He said the organizers had to discuss the next steps, adding that they had been preparing for a referendum and they were expecting it to happen.
Plenkovic did not comment on the referendum on Thursday. He said that the government had heard the message from the citizens of Croatia, but added that it was an "objective circumstance" that people had to stay at work longer. He said that the pension reform was one of his government's structural reforms and that it was thoroughly evaluated in the European Commission's 2019 country report.
The reform was approved by the Croatian Parliament in Dec. 2018, when the government decided to raise the retirement age from 65 years to 67 years. Enditem
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