Following a veto by the National Council, Members of Parliament have now once again passed a law that will grant a carefully selected handful of artists extremely high pension supplements. The Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) has announced that it will start collecting signatures for a legislative referendum. The public had warned that this is about rewarding some controversial individuals, and political analyst, editor and journalist Peter Jančič has described the law as a “legal disgrace and a scandal.”
“The fact that the authorities are granting a pension privilege of 400,000 euros (on average) to a cultural worker of their own choosing is a complete scandal; it is stealing money from all other pensioners. In individual cases, it will be even larger sums than the average mentioned, even 600,000 euros, if they have paid a little money into the pension fund. The privilege will be greater for those who have paid less into the pension fund, which is very illogical,” said Peter Jančič in his introduction.
Jančič believes that the law that has recently been adopted grants pensions to already privileged individuals. This is the case, among others, of Svetlana Makarovič. “Svetlana Makarovič has been receiving a pension for 25 years under the current law for those who have special merits. She has not earned it, it is a privilege, and the current law allows for this privileged pension, for which she has not paid, to be slightly increased. So, she will once again get an even higher pension than the privileged one she already had,” he pointed out.
“We have never seen a bigger legal disgrace and scandal than this,” he added. Jančič also pointed out that the authorities have concealed from the public the fact that, in some cases, the supplement is being granted on top of the already privileged pensions that some individuals are receiving. This is the case of Makarovič, who, since the government of Janez Drnovšek, has been receiving a special pension of 90 percent of the maximum pension for full retirement. “She received this special allowance before she received the Prešeren Prize from the government formed by Janez Drnovšek and Marjan Podobnik,” Jančič noted.
The Minister of Culture, Asta Vrečko, paid Makarovič 8,346 euros for the Prešeren Prize, which the latter had refused more than 20 years ago. The payment, the Court of Auditors found, went against the law.
Jančič also pointed out that the law will probably have to pass the “people’s vote”. Next week, a procedure will be launched to collect 40,000 signatures for a referendum that will hand over the decision on this law to the people.
Allowances for controversial female artists
In his recent media appearance, former minister and SDS MP Zvone Černač also pointed out that some artists who have become “famous” in the past for their controversial artistic projects, such as the artists Simona Semenič and Maja Smrekar, will also receive a pension supplement.
“This is unfair to all the exceptional people in the community and to all those who receive really low pensions, who practically have to be artists to be able to survive with so little money. This is great art, as Mr Černač pointed out, and I completely agree with Mr Černač,” Jančič pointed out.
“Both of these artists have been rewarded by the state. They have been awarded the Prešeren Fund prize, which is 10,000 euros each, while the Prešeren Prize winners receive 30,000 euros each. These prizes are awarded politically. The Ministry of Culture sets up its own committee, which announces the call for applications and awards the prizes. And now, another one of such commissions has been set up, which will award the prize next week to one of them, because politics has judged that they deserve it.”
Are outstanding scientists second-class people?
Jančič also pointed out that the law distinguishes between artists and other outstanding individuals in society.
“We can also ask why the best scientists, the best lawyers, the best doctors are not receiving these same huge pension awards. Are these second-class, miserable people who do not have the same rights as the culturalists of Asta Vrečko or this government coalition? I find this outrageous!”
He also recalled that a similar law was already introduced in the past for achievements in the field of sport. “The law is unfair to everyone else who contributes to society, and they do not get such outrageous privileges, which are now held by the government and which it has already granted to sportsmen in the past, at the suggestion of Mr Peter Vilfan, who proposed it for himself,” he assessed.
Ž. K.
