“Studies published in the past few months by OECD [Ed. n. – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], the World Economic Forum and the World Bank clearly indicate that, at the global level, public pension budgets were the most affected by the financial and economic crisis, and not the private pension funds. If deficits in public pension systems are more easily and less expensively financeable and bearable in times of economic growth, in times of crisis, deficits widen and the lack of sustainability of state pensions, at the global level, becomes more noticeable,” said the President of the Association of Romanian Private Pension Funds, Crinu Andanut, said.
In Romania, 2009 should have been the year of a 2.5 percent contribution, according to the schedule set initially by law. The eternal hunger for money of the public pension budget hit Pillar II only one year after the mandatory private pension system was introduced. Thus, of the contributions paid by more than four million Romanians to the National House of Pensions and Other Social Insurance Rights (CNPAS), only two percent is to go to private funds, the same as in 2008. The public budget should have allocated total contributions worth RON 1.7 billion for Pillar II this year. After it was decided to freeze contributions at two percent, the money that entered the system will total some RON 1.36 bln this year. This means the state saved €75 million.
