New pension law no sooner than 2006

The new occupational pension law could come into force in January 2006, while the law for privately managed pensions could become effective by January 2007, according to Mihai Seitan (photo), state secretary at the Ministry of Labour and the chairman of the National Pension and Social Security House. “These two laws were passed last year but have not come into force because they lack enforcement guidelines. Furthermore, they were poorly done and very restrictive. We intend to redo them by the summer through draft laws to be debated in Parliament. I am not in favour of emergency ordinances because if we resort to this method and the ordinance comes into force but needs to be modified by parliamentary debate, it will only make things more complicated,” Seitan said. The law on occupational pensions was enacted at the end of 2004 and became effective as of this year. “First of all, we need to change the enforcement deadline because the law cannot be applied at the moment and we intend to broaden access to these funds,” Seitan said. The law in its current form limits the number of participants in occupational pension schemes by omitting staff from companies with debts to the state budget and utility companies and from state-run institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises. ZF