ZAGREB, April 26, 2019 – The Archdiocese of Zagreb on Thursday stated that it was not able to give permission to three union federations to collect signatures for their retirement referendum petition at the premises owned by this Catholic archdiocese, underlining that it does not take sides with anybody in this case.
Explaining its refusal to permit unionists to collect signatures outside its churches and other buildings it owns, the Archdiocese says that in the processes aimed at achieving goals through referenda, the Church makes its premises available to civic initiatives that have no other possibilities for accomplishment of the values which they and the Church advocate.
On the other hand, trade unions can act within the regulated relations within the political life in Croatia and can in “a regular way and with certain financial support” achieve their objectives, the Archdiocese says.
The archdiocese says that the topic of pension system is definitely extremely important for the Croatian society and believes that this matter should be looked at from a broader framework than the issue of statutory pension age.
The three union federations have launched their “67 is too much” campaign to call a referendum which would bring back the full retirement age to 65 as it was prior to the pension reform. The signature collection campaign will run from April 27 to May 11.
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.
More news about referendums can be found in the Politics section.
