According to Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL), raising the retirement age is inevitable in the future. A future government will have to postpone the current cap of 65, which applies until 2024. According to the minister, this will be necessary around 2030.
Jurečka said that the government would present a pension reform by the end of next year. The need for it has been discussed for several decades, but so far, political representation has never been able to agree on its form. The minister claims that the decision to raise the retirement age may not be attributable to the current cabinet, but it will come sooner or later.
“We will not avoid this step in the future. The pension deficit will start to increase after 2032-2033. So moving that threshold is not strictly necessary in 2024. It will be necessary around 2030. A future government will not avoid it,” the minister said.
Around 2030, strong classes will start retiring. For the pension system to be financeable, its parameters must change, which can be achieved either by drastically reducing pensions or by securing new revenues.
From January next year, pensions should increase by CZK 825, while the ministry estimates that the average self-funded retirement in January 2023 will be around CZK 19 500.
Jurečka and a group of coalition MPs are also proposing a reduction in retirement pensions for prominent members of the former communist regime. The circle of former officials defined by the law would receive less money under the government’s amendment on the possibility of early pensions without cuts for rescue workers from March 2024.
The reduction of pensions of communist ex-pensioners in former Czechoslovakia would “play a symbolic role,” according to the drafters, whose goal is no noticeable drop in their standard of living.
According to Jurečka, reducing the retirement pensions of communist notables by CZK 300 for each year in office would affect some 3 000 people.