By quickly legislating the maximum pensions for a large number of “deserving” cultural workers who did not pay for their pensions themselves, the parties of the government coalition – the Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda), the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) and the Left party (Levica) – are dismantling the public pension system.
The scale of the cuts they intend to make is shown by the list (which is still being expanded in the National Assembly) of what it takes to get from the pension coffers what you did not pay for. At the beginning of the first annexe, it says: “For outstanding achievements which show special merit for the quality, importance and recognition of the arts in the Republic of Slovenia or abroad.” Then they go on to list who all should be entitled to this …
The rulers for an additional privilege for the “deserving few”
Let’s make this a bit more concrete: a Prešeren Award laureate who won a 30,000-euro-prize in 2021 and would have received the pension of a thousand euros after contributions will now receive a 1,695-euros-monthly supplement, thanks to the presidents of the coalition parties – the Left’s Asta Vrečko, the Social Democrats’ Matjaž Han, and the Freedom Movement’s Robert Golob. Together with this, the select few will actually get the maximum old-age pension, which is 2,695 euros. This will amount to 20,344 euros per year of undeserved privilege. Over ten years, this will amount to 203,444 euros. Which is almost a quarter of a million euros. Many will take the money because they are not stupid. Anyone would do that in their place. Meanwhile, the government is handing out money as if it were worthless. Because it is not theirs. It is yours.
They already made sure that the “deserving few” got special privileges in Yugoslavia
Our pension system is based on the idea that everyone should get a pension for what they have paid in during their time working. When politicians on the left massively distribute what the privileged have not paid into the state pension system, they are stealing from those who have paid in, and they will get lower pensions as a result. That means you. The fact that they will pay extra from the budget does not change anything. What is happening is a beautiful illustration of why socialism and Yugoslavia once failed. Politicians see state property as their own personal ATMs, and theft and corruption run rampant. Not only in the pension system. Everywhere. Already in Yugoslavia, there were meritorious cadres who demanded repayment for favours of one kind or another. And the law for deserving privileged people from those times is even invoked today by those in power. If they could steal in Yugoslavia, they can continue to steal today.
Controversial actions after Slovenian independence
After the creation of the Slovenian state, undeservedly high and early pensions were first legislated by politicians – back then of all colours – for themselves, so that Members of Parliament, ministers and the like could retire with only 25 years of service. But their dream solution of living well for decades at the expense of all the people was overturned by the Constitutional Court as unfair to other people. As theft of public money, to put it in more understandable language. However, the privilege had only been abolished by the Constitutional Court for future generations. Not for those who were already MPs and ministers, and who actually created the law. Around the time when the court repealed the article, Janez Drnovšek had dismissed Minister Miha Jazbinšek (Liberal Democracy of Slovenia – LDS), who then decided to retire and thus receive the higher pension for politicians. Among the well-known MPs from the time of this law are also Tine and Spomenka Hribar, as well as many others before and after them.
Later, when Janez Drnovšek became President of the Republic, MPs from the ruling Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (Liberalna demokracija Slovenije – LDS), the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) and Slovenian People’s Party (Slovenska ljudska stranka – SLS) enacted a lifetime pension supplement and huge benefits for Presidents of the Republic, and retroactively granted this to the former President Milan Kučan. In the subsequent austerity measures, when the extravagances (the right to a multi-year office, payment of colleagues, use of a car) for ex-presidents were abolished, they left Kučan with an undeserved presidential pension allowance. Zoran Janković of the Positive Slovenia party (Pozitivna Slovenija – PS) managed to achieve this with an amendment, which, surprisingly, was also supported by Matej Tonin, then-leader of the parliamentary group of the then-coalition New Slovenia party (Nova Slovenija – NSi). With this decision, he went against his own right-wing government. He claimed he did it because it was an acquired right, even though it was acquired retroactively. As the cultural workers’ rights will be now. For merit in the distant past. Also from the previous regime.
With the culturalists dismantling the foundations of the public pension system, which they see as their private property, the politicians are now dismantling it even more extensively, and in a situation where it is clear that major cuts and sacrifices will be necessary because of the ageing of the population in order for the pension system to survive at all, and where we know that – if the politicians are not clever – the pension system may well collapse. The mass distribution of top pensions to a large number of deserving cadres, completely bypassing contributions, is the sure way that Yugoslavia once went. It did not collapse by accident.
However, in 2017 already, Peter Vilfan, together with the MPs of the Modern Centre Party (Stranka modernega centra – SMC), the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (Demokratska stranka upokojencev Slovenije – DeSUS), the Social Democrats and the New Slovenia party, managed to legislate a maximum pension for himself and a hundred other deserving athletes, even though he did not pay enough money into the pension system to get it. Not him and not the others. The idea of giving the highest pensions to a number of other deserving cultural figures failed at the time. But it was clear that they would try again. If one can get this, the others can, too. And the rest. In Parliament, we were persuaded that the highest pensions for Vilfan and the like were being used to encourage top athletes to win international competitions, but the money was being handed out retrospectively.
They are successfully evading the state’s plucking
When it comes to the future, the situation is as follows: the most famous Slovenian sportsmen – basketball player Luka Dončić and cyclists Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar – have moved abroad for tax purposes, where they will earn much higher pensions and thus avoid being completely ripped off by their home country with the astronomical taxes and contributions that are legislated for those who earn a lot of money for a while. Because that is supposedly a sin, and we want to chase away all people like this, ensuring that they move abroad.
The distribution of money to many more cultural workers, which was also approved in the second reading by government MPs in the Committee on Culture last week, in order to reward people like Svetlana Makarovič (who recently got more than eight thousand euros as a gift from the Minister of Culture Asta Vrečko for her political activism, already bypassing the law) with unpaid top pensions, is just the logical extension of the destruction of the foundations of the pension system. Alongside the deserving cultural workers, there are many more waiting for the money they did not pay contributions for. There are also political functionaries who would definitely deserve this. And if today, the left is handing out money to deserving cultural workers, tomorrow, others will be handing it out to others in order to repay this or that favour from your pensions.
It would at least be fair for the government to decide that the new legislation would only apply to the future (to those who have yet to prove themselves), while also ensuring that the state will make the appropriate contributions to pension funds when state awards are made. Let us say, for example, 200,000 euros to be paid into the pension fund of the winner of the Prešeren Prize, and 100,000 euros to be paid by those who award lower prizes, which guarantee a lower privilege. But we will not see something as fair as this happen. There is no Finance Minister who would agree to such waste. But Klemen Boštjančič now agrees with the same waste, which is disguised by lying about how there will be no financial consequences. Of course there will be, and there will be big ones. And you will pay.
Destroying the public pension system
What is happening now is the teardown of the public pension system. The theft from those who paid fair and square what they had to, and now some other people will get their money, who did not pay what they were supposed to, but they are close to the current authorities. As a journalist and editor, I have often reported on referendums, and this is the first time I am thinking of personally helping to organise one and also calling on people to vote against this destruction of the foundations of the public pension system. Even if it fails, at least we have tried to do what would be right for the future of the country. And for basic fairness for all children, too. Because they, too, are now having their future stolen in the name of the “deserving” few, who will get what they did not pay for.
Peter Jančič, Spletni časopis
