Jurecka hopes the change could be implemented by 2024. Photo credit: vlada.cz.
Prague, Oct 12 (CTK) – Czech Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurecka has proposed that the retirement pensions of senior officials in the former Communist regime should be cut by CZK 300 for each year they spent in their posts, he told reporters before the lower house session today. The proposal would apply to around 3,000 people.
Jurecka (KDU-CSL) wants to submit the proposal at today’s Chamber of Deputies session, as an amendment to the government plans to allow early pensions without reductions for emergency service staff.
The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR) would provide a list of the former Communist officials in question, said Jurecka, to enable the change to be drafted next year and implemented in 2024.
The pension cuts, of CZK 300 for every year served in selected posts, including partially completed years, would apply to members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSC) central committee, heads of parliamentary and national committees, general and chief military prosecutors, senior soldiers and police officials, as well as members of the main staff of the People’s Militia and Border Guard, with the exception of those who were later rehabilitated.
The reduction of these officials’ pensions should only play a “symbolic role”, without causing a significant decline in their living standards. Their pension after cuts would never decrease below a certain level, according to the authors of the bill.
The pensions of anti-Communist resistance fighters would be symbolically raised by the same amount.
Jurecka made the same proposal in the previous election term, but in a different form. He submitted it as an amendment to a government bill adding CZK 300 to pensions above the legally required indexation. The Chamber of Deputies did not vote on the proposal at that time for procedural reasons.
The current bill more precisely specifies the senior regime figures to whom the pension cuts would apply, said Jurecka.
