- Bulgarian government declared publicly its intention to increase the retirement age to 65 (currently at 63 for men and 60 for women). The referred reasons were the demographic crisis, the unbearable deficit of social insurance and the same EU trend- for example Germany is considering the introduction of a pension threshold at 67. The overwhelming tsunami of the government controlled media jammed the helpless voice of the wounded old people and the indirectly affected youth. It called back a melancholy after the communist pension idyll of 60 years for men and 55 for women.
- The change of retirement age is not only a drama for the life’s autumn but is also a profound quake of social problems such as:
1. Keeping a huge number of aged people in active employment deprives the same number of workplaces for young Bulgarians who will stay unemployed heavily relying on social security benefits.
2. These young unemployed jobless men and women in reproductive age shall be deterred to create families and children because of their inability to provide a normal life standard. The number of lonely mothers and deserted children shall rise. This will not only fail to resolve the demographic crisis but will sharpen it.
3. There might be work-capable, highly qualified and experienced people at 65 and above – although in the exhausting and poorly organized Bulgarian life they will be the exceptions. Let them work as long as they wish. But the same should no be assumed for and required from the majority of tired, almost broken and poor-health Bulgarians over 60. They are like burnt down candles which are forced to stay on the candelabra. This would be an implied instruction for death without pension.
4. In the thousand year Bulgarian family tradition the major factor for upbringing and good breeding of children are the grand parents whose devotion and spiritual link with the grand children is even stronger than the attachment to their parents. The increased retirement age will deprive the children from their grandma and grandpa with their stories and care and shall transfer them as chickens to the state kindergartens –again on budget subsidies
5. Bulgarian pensioners ask: Where are the pension funds accumulated through the decades of their working life? Where are the billions, have they flown out in space? The increase of the pension age due to pension fund deficit is a brutal concession of the state to the unpunished political crime because only governments have access to that money. The victims of this ritual are the helpless old people and the children.
6. If today the pension reserve is not sufficient for the 63 year olds, tomorrow it will not be enough for the 65 or 67 year olds if the reasons stay the same. What will be then the solution- retirement at 70? This is the same as to pump water over a defected nuclear reactor without stopping its fuel- sooner or later it will explode. It is absolutely not ruled out that someone may guess war is the cheapest way for solving the pension crisis if it is the way for the establishment to get rid of the old nuisances. War is really at the end of this blind alley.
7. The civilization we have chosen which is already galloping beyond control, inspires in the woman an ambition and egoism for education, career and financial independence with unnecessary dimensions. This puts off marriage, family and children after the age of 30 or 35. But at that time it is less likely for the preferred man to pay her the desired attention. How many successful female intellectuals do you know who live in a noisy and rich loneliness? This is anti-natural and incompatible with the substantial vocation of a woman. Islam does no admit a similar situation and in this respect they outmatch us- look at their birth rate and consider what kind of a “pension” system saves them the demographic crisis. It is not about denying women the basic rights and opportunities of our civilization, it is about their balanced and considered selection of these opportunities and about the children waiting to be born.
- A pension is not only a monetary digit for a certain age. It is the symbol of social respect to the dignity of the retiring veteran citizen, to his achievements and to his golden autumn of life.
- The ancient Bulgarian tribe riding on its way to Europe could not afford special care to its ill and frail old men and abandoned them to their fate in the steppes of Asia. For the sake of the tribe’s survival. Today 14 centuries later the Bulgarian nation is again marching to Europe, now called European Union. Shall we again abandon our old people to their fate? Aren’t they our real Europe?
March 2010
Valentin Braykov