Romanian state pensions will rise by 40% on average from September 2022, Labor Minister Bucura Oprescu said.
Under a pending pension bill, for which the government is seeking parliamentary approval this month, as a first step, five million pensions will be indexed by 13.8% in January.
That will increase pension spending to 13.8 billion lei per month.The bill, which was supposed to be approved in the first half of this year, has been repeatedly postponed and will be enforced from 2024, when Romania holds local, parliamentary, presidential, and European elections.
The hikes are expected to give a boost to the government in a year when there will be local, parliamentary and presidential elections.
Almost 2 million Romanians will reach retirement age after 2030, a destabilizing increase to the pay-as-you-go state pension system.
