Meeting of the Senate in the Valdštejnské Palace in Prague, March 8, 2023.
Prague – Today, as expected, the Senate approved the controversial reduction in the June valorization of pensions that it proposed the government due to the need not to increase state spending disproportionately. As of June, the average pension is to increase by around 760 crowns per month, while without the amendment it would have increased by 1,770 crowns in line with the rate of inflation. The proposal will still be assessed by incoming president Petr Pavel, who promised to publish his opinion on Friday.
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For the approval of the government pension amendment, 48 members of the factions of the government coalition out of 72 senators present voted. Against it were 12 members of the upper parliamentary chamber, mainly from the opposition ANO, SEN 21, ČSSD and the government Pirates, who were joined by two SLK senators, the People's Party Jiří Čunek and Jana Zwyrtek Hamplová (for the Independents). The remaining 12 senators, including Hana Kordová Marvanová (for ODS) and Daniela Kovářová (independent), who supported the rejection of the amendment in the constitutional-legal committee on Tuesday, voted delayed. Discussion of the amendment took five and a quarter hours.
The reduction in valorization is expected to cost 15 billion crowns this year, without it, according to the government, state spending on pensions would have increased by 34.4 billion crowns this year. In the following seven years until 2030, they would gradually increase to a total of roughly 291.3 billion crowns, Finance Minister Zbyněk Stanjura (ODS) told the senators. According to the minister, the costs of servicing the state debt of 50.5 billion crowns must be added to this, so the total costs would increase to 342 billion crowns, which the government would have to borrow.
Stanjur called the advice unusable the opposition to simultaneously not increase the budget's expenses or its income by raising taxes and at the same time reduce the budget deficit. He called the words of the chairman of the National Budget Council, Mojmír Hampl, as apt, who called this mix a “budget lobotomy”.
In January, according to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the average old-age pension amounted to 19,438 crowns. According to the ministry, after a limited increase, the average pension will exceed 20,000 crowns and reach 46 percent of the average wage. Without the reduction in growth, the average pension would rise to 48 percent of the average wage, compared to around 40 percent of the average wage in the past.
