The only parameter pensioners trust is a wallet and a refrigerator, which not only negate the government's claims that we have never lived better, but testify that the life of most of the oldest citizens of Serbia is getting harder, the union associations of pensioners said today in a letter to the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, and the Prime Minister Ani Brnabić.
In a joint statement of the Union of Pensioners of Serbia and the Association of Pensioners of Serbia "Nezavisnost", they remind the head of state and the prime minister that they lived through many difficult years and additionally made a great sacrifice by helping the state to stabilize the 2014-2018 budget. year, and that the last two years have seen a dramatic impoverishment of the pensioner population.
This is a consequence of the constant increase in the prices of food products, energy, housing costs, and medicines, due to which even about a million of the oldest people found themselves on the brink of physical survival, retiree unions warn. In a letter addressed to the President of the State and Prime Minister of Serbia, pensioner associations emphasize that pensions by the end of 2025 should not be lower than 50 percent of the average salary in Serbia by the end of that year, which would imply a slightly higher increase in pensions than projected.
The debtors are also seeking an agreement on the method and deadlines for returning 840 million euros, the total amount that the state took from pensioners to stabilize the budget. They are also demanding the abolition of penalty points for early retirement for those who, by force of law, had to leave work before the age of 65. Pensioners expect the government to provide more state homes for the care and protection of the elderly, because private ones are too expensive and unsafe, as well as day care centers in every municipality, with professionals, to whom families can entrust their oldest while they are at work.
Pensioners, as they emphasize, also need a national council for the elderly, which would deal exclusively with pensioners and the elderly, because they represent "a third of the population, which supports at least as many citizens of the Republic of Serbia." Also, every municipality needs gerontologists and social workers who will know how the elderly live. These cannot be centers for social work, because they deal with many other problems.
"We need an institution in every municipality, especially in the interior and villages, which will have every citizen of Serbia on the list when they reach the age of 65 and fulfill the legal requirement for retirement. An institution that will take care of each of us," the unions of pensioners stated in a joint statement. "If they can find us when they need to send us letters of thanks, ballots, they can find us to see if we are alive, relatively healthy and what we need," the pensioners told the head of state and the prime minister, demanding an urgent meeting.
MJ/Fonet
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