Proposal by municipal councilor Vanya Grigorova - to eliminate the mandatory second pension pillar. This became clear from her appearance on the show “Face to Face“ on bTV on September 15. What problems is this proposal expected to solve and does it have any application in our country, we ask former Deputy Prime Minister and economist Nikolay Vassilev.
“In 13 minutes of airtime, Vanya Grigorova said seven, come on, let me not tell “lies“, I will tell incorrect statements. The first lie is that the Bulgarian pension model should be like the European one. I took the trouble to check - there are 13 countries in Europe with mandatory pension insurance in private companies, not as she claims that Bulgaria is the only one“, he commented.
“In addition, she repeated twice that losses in private funds were guaranteed. She understands this as much as I do about cooking. She does not understand the investment process“, Vassilev also said.
“The solidarity system assumes that people with higher incomes pay large social security contributions and pay pensions, including those who contribute nothing. As you know, about a third of pensioners are currently on a minimum pension, which means that they should receive less, but the state has still set a fairly high threshold so that everyone can already receive around 600 leva“, he explained.
And he gave a personal example from his youth:
„As a young investment banker in the UK, I had the opposite case. Then, as a graduate student, they asked me if I wanted a British state pension, or to put everything in private pension funds. I said that I didn't want a state one and asked that everything be in private funds. Here, this is the other model that I believe in more“.
“The more we take from the savings and the work of the richer people, the more we stimulate them to evade taxes, or to move abroad and no one pays the high taxes and social security contributions“, Vassilev further explained.