Fidesz: Men’s early retirement would bring pension cuts

Budapest (MTI) – Campaigns by radical nationalist Jobbik and the Socialist Party promoting the chance for men to retire after 40 years of work, an option already open to women, entail the consequence that pensions would be cut across the board, ruling Fidesz said on Friday.

Jobbik earlier on Friday called on the governor of the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) and Fidesz to “cut back on irresponsible luxury spending” in order to finance early retirement for men.

Lawmaker Janos Volner said the government’s position that funding of 150 billion forints (EUR 483.3m) was unavailable for men’s early retirement was untenable when the central bank was spending 160 billion forints on its foundations. Such moves mean Fidesz politicians are suffering from a “crisis of values”, he said, adding that the money was used for luxury purchases only and recent art and real estate purchases served to “satisfy the personal ambitions of governor Gyorgy Matolcsy”. He said that in a number of the bank’s purchases it was questionable whether prices reflected real market value.

The Socialists said last week that men’s early retirement could be financed by whitening the economy. Nandor Gur, a lawmaker for the party, said at the time that the measure would require 100-150 billion forints to introduce while up to 600 billion forints could be raised by reducing the share of the black or grey economy to 16 percent from the current 18 percent.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters