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The discussion of the pension agreement between Albania and Italy has collided the minister Blendi Gonxhe with the democratic deputy Jorida Tabaku, this Thursday in the Parliament.
DP MP Jorida Tabaku said in her speech that this agreement comes after a long discussion of several Albanian governments that is only being crowned now. According to her, this agreement should and will receive the vote of all deputies, but she asked for information about which other countries the Albanian government is negotiating such agreements with, recalling an agreement with Greece that is still pending.
"First of all, I believe, the question naturally arises for everyone: Who are the next countries with which the Albanian government will continue to negotiate for pensions and where we are in relation to the discussions with Greece, which is the country with the highest number of pensioners. Have technical discussions advanced? Have the discussions advanced with political engagement? Do we have any information today about where we are in terms of pension negotiations and over 700,000 Albanians who unfortunately left for Greece today", said Tabaku.
She said that pensioners are in poverty while the pension reform has really failed, once and for all undoing the propaganda that that reform is successful.
"The data are stubborn and we did not have the opportunity to fully discuss them in the Economy Committee and as a result of the constant noise and when you are interested in getting information, it is bad. But INSTAT says that the risk of being poor in Albania has increased by 2% for those over 65 years old, while in 2022 pensioners with our partial pension are 48% of the total pensioners. Which means today 1 in 2 retirees has a partial pension. The INSTAT and EUROSTAT data point out that 85% of pensioners, mainly in the countryside, have their pension income lower than the vital minimum and it is the level determined and calculated by EUROSTAT because, as we all know, we do not have an official level defined in terms of the vital minimum.
Expenditures for the sector related to direct payments in the field of pensions have decreased to the level of 7.3% of GDP compared to 2023, 7.8% which was this indicator before the pandemic. There are all indicators that show that the pension policy failed today, the social pension proclaimed today, declared by the Government here 8 years ago, failed as a measure to bring a large layer of the population and pensioners out of poverty. And I firmly believe in fact that all reforms that affect more than the mandate of a government should be joint reforms, they should be reforms that fundamentally affect the system on the one hand but on the other hand are also sustainable in time, which do not change from one year to another", said Tabaku in her speech in the Assembly.
On the other hand, Gonxhe emphasized that with the scheme approved in 2014, he has curbed the deficit and increased the number of contributors.
"I should dwell a little on the part of the failure of the reform, which according to the data has not turned out to be such, on the contrary, it is one of the most successful in the field of pensions. In 2014 the deficit was 2% of GDP and the trend was deepening, endangering the financial sustainability of the entire scheme. The pensions provided by the scheme were very low and with ceilings for maximum pensions, discouraging citizens from participating, or continuing employment by declaring real wages. That reform made it possible to curb the deficit.
Thanks to this reform and the fight against informality that the government has done and continues to do every day, the number of contributors and contribution income has increased from about 600 thousand in 2014, today there are 827 thousand. From 61 billion ALL in contribution income in 2014, we are at 124.6 billion in 2023", said Gonxhe.
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