The Romanian Government is preparing financial support for pensioners, in the context of the cancellation of pension indexing at the beginning of 2025. According to government sources, approximately 2.8 million pensioners are expected to receive a one-time aid of 70 lei, most likely in April.
On January 1, 2025, pensions should have increased by 12%, according to legal provisions. However, the government decided to freeze the reference point value at 81 lei, instead of increasing it to 91 lei. Consequently, the pension point value remained at 2,032 lei, although it should have reached 2,279 lei.
This measure led to significant losses for pensioners. According to some calculations, each pensioner loses, on average, about 30 lei per month due to the non-application of indexing. Also, the state saves a considerable amount, considering the large number of affected pensioners.
To partially compensate for this loss, the government announced that it will allocate 2 billion lei (approximately 40 million euros) to provide financial aid to pensioners. The distribution of these funds will be determined by the Ministry of Labor after the budget is approved in Parliament.
The Minister of Finance stated that, at the moment, there are no clear details about the method of granting the aid.
At the government level, there were several variants for granting financial support. One proposal was to grant a larger aid of 2.0 lei, but only for about 1 million pensioners, those with a minimum pension of 1,281 lei. Another variant provided for aid of 1.0 lei for 2 million pensioners, those with pensions of up to 2.30 lei.
In the end, the Government and the PSD insisted on a solution that would include a larger number of beneficiaries. Thus, a 70 lei aid was reached for the 2.8 million pensioners who have pensions under 3.0 lei.
The authorities hope to identify additional funds at the budget rectification in September, in order to be able to grant another financial support in October. The purpose of this would be to help pensioners cope with higher expenses during the winter.
For now, the government remains focused on granting the support in April, which will be a one-time aid of 70 lei for pensioners with pensions under 3.0 lei.
