Bulgarian MPs Reject Veto on Retirement Age Upping

Bulgaria's Parliament expectedly rejected the veto imposed by outgoing President Georgi Parvanov on the Act that foresees the retirement age in the country to be gradually increased with one year until 2014.

Last Sunday, Parvanov signed a decree to return the State and Public Social Security Act for 2012 to the Parliament for new debates. The lawmakers passed the Act on December 8, 2011.

Parvanov pointed out that the retirement reform adopted by the Parliament was "a single-handed refusal of those in power to fulfill commitments and legally outlined responsibilities, contradicting the established principles of social dialogue".

The President also expressed his discontent over the dropping of the so-called golden Swiss rule – to up each year retirement pensions by 50% of the growth of social security revenues and 50% of the inflation growth.

On Friday, 121 out of the total of 240 MPs in Bulgaria's single-house Parliament rejected Parvanov's veto, just enough to pass the bill once again. Petar Korumbashev from the oppositional Bulgarian Socialist Party demanded a re-vote, in which the governing GERB gathered 122 votes.

GERB has 117 lawmakers in the Parliament but is able to sustain a comfortable majority with the help of "independent" MPs.

The left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party has already declared that it will turn to the Constitutional Court with the demand to cancel the State and Public Social Security Act for 2012.

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