After Parliament turned down the opposition's draft constitutional bill on protection of the system of pension saving, one of it authors, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) announced it is launching a petition next week against the Cabinet's negative interventions in the pension system. Party chairman Mikulas Dzurinda told journalists that they are reacting to the decision of coalition deputies not to support the draft already for the second time. "The purpose of the petition will be to spark an extraordinary discussion in Parliament," said Mr. Dzurinda. The party wants to formulate the petition in a manner that would not worsen the status of current and future pensioners due to government interventions. The SDKU-DS will organize the petition with its partners the Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH) and the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) and non-governmental organizations as well.
Parliament did not advance on Wednesday a draft constitutional bill on protection of old-age pensions submitted by opposition deputies to the second reading, since 56 deputies voted in favor of the bill, 61 were opposed and 16 deputies refrained from voting. The draft constitutional bill proposes to protect the second pillar in the pension scheme from changes to the detriment of securing the old-age income of the saver and the income of inheritors in case of his/her death. In a debate on the draft SDKU-DS deputy Stanislav Janis said that the draft should not conserve the current state but guarantee that the status of savers in the second pillar will not worsen. Mr. Janis alleged that the aim of the prime minister and the Labor Ministry is to get their hands on the money that is now out of reach of the state. Jan Valova (SMER-SD), however, pointed to insufficient protection of savers' savings because, she said the National Bank of Slovakia can say that rules were breached but it cannot prevent their violation.
"The point of the problem is the sum of contributions to the first and second pillars while all other things are not that important," said a deputy for the People's Party -- Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (LS-HZDS), Jozef Halecky. According to him the question whether the ratio was set correctly has been still unanswered. The main disadvantage of the opposition's draft is that its adoption would not enable inevitable corrections. Mr. Halecky underscored that the opening of the second pillar will clean up the second pillar.
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