Prague, June 10 (CTK) – Czech pensioners will receive a one-off contribution of 600 crowns this year and their monthly pensions will be indexed to compensate for the inflation in 2016, Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) told CTK yesterday.
The leaders of the three coalition parties agreed on the one-off contribution on Monday, Babis said.
This compensation will cost the state 1.7 billion crowns, he said.
Next year, the pensions will be raised by inflation and one third of the increase in real wages, according to law.
On Monday, Babis rejected the 1.8-percent increase proposed by Labour Minister Michaela Marksova (Social Democrats, CSSD). Marksova’s proposal would raise the pension by 205 crowns a month on average.
Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (CSSD) said previously a 200-crown increase in the monthly pension is a budgetary priority for the Social Democrats.
If the government coalition of the CSSD, ANO and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) does not agree on such an increase, the CSSD will propose a 600-crown contribution that would be paid to all pensioners in December 2015, Sobotka said.
The pension indexation will raise the monthly pensions approximately by 100 crowns.
In January, the pensions were raised by 1.8 percent (200 crowns on average). The government said the increase was higher than the inflation because pensions grew only slightly in the previous years.
According to the Labour Ministry’s data, the increase in pensions would cost an extra 10.6 billion and 11.2 billion crowns in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
($1=24.328 crowns)
