Senior citizens call on president to veto law slowering pension rise

Prague, Sept 6 (CTK) - The Czech Council of Seniors has asked President Vaclav Klaus to veto the law slowing the rise in pensions that the Chamber of Deputies passed on Wednesday, overriding the Senate veto, council head Zdenek Pernes told journalists yesterday.

Klaus will now get the legislation for signature.

Pernes said the council will also strive for pensioners getting an extraordinary sum to compensate them for higher living costs as prices are rising.

"The lower pension indexation will throw hundreds of thousands of seniors into poverty. Czech seniors deserve a calm and dignified old age. They have created and handed to society values from which it now profits. They paid their pensions beforehand," the council wrote to Klaus, saying he is their last hope.

Until now, pensions have been raised every January by inflation and one third of real wages. The new legislation only counts with one third of inflation and one third of real wages within the austerity measures aimed to keep the state budget deficit beneath 3 percent of GDP.

The measure is to save 9.5 billion crowns next year and a total of 47.7 billion crowns by 2015 by when the measure is to be applied.

The seniors' council associates some 320,000 members of pensioners' organisations, according to its leadership.

More than 1.7 million people over 65 live in the Czech Republic now. The average old-age pension was 10,740 crowns as from end-March.

The Czech Social Security Authority (CSSZ) pays out about 2.9 million old-age, disability and widow, widower and orphan pensions.

The council wrote to Klaus that the new pension indexation, to be valid as from next year, would be insufficient. It counted that pensioners' monthly living costs have been 463 crowns higher since January, but the pensions have risen only by an average of 156 crowns a month.

($1=19.699 crowns)