ZAGREB, March 18, 2019 – A union referendum initiative against retiring at the age of 67 called “67 is too much” said on Monday it would collect signatures for the referendum from April 27 to May 11 and that the question would be about lowering the retirement age back to 65.
Speaking at a press conference, union leaders Mladen Nosovel, Krešimir Sever and Vilim Ribić said the referendum would demand to amend the Pension Insurance Act.
The initiative proposes that an insured person be entitled to old age pension upon reaching 65 years of age and having completed 15 years of qualifying periods and to early age pension with 60 years of age and 35 years of qualifying periods, reducing penalisation for early retirement from 0.3% to 0.2, and delaying the equation of the required pension age for men and women.
The three leaders said that by voting in the referendum, citizens would directly repeal the pension reform pushed through by Labour and Pension System Minister Marko Pavić, against which unions announced the referendum last October.
Sever said people in Croatia could not work until they were 67, that penalisation for early retirement was too high and that the equation of the retirement age for men and women had accelerated too much.
He said Croats lived shorter on average than people elsewhere in the EU and that a healthy life in Croatia after the age of 65 was only five years, half the EU average. “We are a sick, overworked and poor nation where people are forced to work to exhaustion, after which they can work four hours also when they retire.”
Ribić said the extension of the working life in Croatia was not a necessity but a consequence of political elitism. “Elite groups are to blame for the situation in the country, the outrageous emigration and demographic depression, so we ask that citizens be given back the right to decide.”
Novosel said the unions had tried to dissuade the government from the “unreasonable” pension reform, but to no avail.
More news about referendum initiatives in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.
