Government propaganda with pensioners

In the electoral campaign of June 2013, while seeking the vote of Albanians to come to power, Edi Rama committed that through the rebirth program he would lift the elderly out of poverty.

"Our commitment dignified pensions to lift the elderly out of poverty," Rama promised in 2013.

A year later, after winning the first governing mandate, the government introduced the new pension reform. According to Prime Minister Rama, the essence of the reform was the dignified pension.

"It cannot continue for another 20 years, another 30 years, considering people who retire as beings who simply have to survive with a handful of lek...", Rama committed in 2014.

'Déjà vu'

On the eve of an election year, Rama brought back the old electoral card of increasing pensions. The government has launched an information campaign with pensioners from north to south, promising pension increases to the elderly.

"The goal is to be able to condition the government by law that in the percentage of economic growth, when the economy has an extra growth, the pensioners will be the first beneficiaries, and this will be shared," Prime Minister Rama promised during public discussions on the growth of pensions initially without giving specific deadlines.

As the head of the government continued his tour of meetings with pensioners throughout the country, the state budget for the next year was submitted to the parliament.

In the most important state finance document, the government has not earmarked money for increasing pensions. Even in 2025, over 791,000 pensioners across the country will only benefit from indexation and year-end bonus.

Referring to the figures of the draft budget, the government has provided 1.6 billion lek as a fund for the indexation of pensions from the 4.1 billion that were predicted this year. So, two and a half times less than this year's indexation, which was 4.1%.

Meanwhile, the end-of-year bonus fund for retirees is almost the same as this year's. In 2025, the government has planned 3.7 billion ALL in the form of bonus, from 3.6 billion planned this year.

At this point, Rama was forced to give time limits for increasing pensions. The promise that he fulfilled during a decade of governance, the same prime minister commits to fulfill in the next four years.

"We have been reminded since the first day about this work, but we do not have the opportunity to seriously address a significant increase in support for pensioners because the economy has not allowed us," explained the head of government in another meeting with the elderly.

This fact created dissatisfaction and for the first time in ten years hundreds of pensioners gathered in protest in front of the prime minister.

"They have been deceiving us for 30 years. What these people have done is not called pension increase. Living with these pensions is very difficult," said Qazim Mesipi for factoje.al.

What has happened in ten years?

791,257 pensioners live in Albania. Referring to data from the Institute of Social Insurance, in ten years the average pension in the city has increased by 4,158 ALL and in the countryside by 3,586 ALL.

The data processed by Faktoje show that during the last decade pensions have been indexed by an average of 4%. Indexation is a legal obligation aimed at compensating for the consequences of changes in the prices of goods and services selected for the minimum standard of living of pensioners.

In parallel with the indexation, in the last ten years the government has also distributed bonuses from 3 to 5 thousand ALL to pensioners at the end of each year.

Economic experts agree that pensions should increase, but they link the awakening of attention to pensioners after a decade of government with the elections.

"It is only the word campaign that counts, because if it were for pensioners, it should be planted little by little every year. The biggest reforms are made at the beginning of the governing mandates in order to give time to develop them, learn from them and correct what is needed for the next government", argues Eduard Gjokutaj.

On the other hand, Irena Beqiraj adds that increasing pensions requires addressing some challenges.

"Pensions cannot be increased without addressing structural demographic changes with the appropriate means, without diversifying the country's sectoral economic structure,

without changing the structure of taxes, which we used sometimes as morphine and sometimes as candy to reduce the pain of an economy that does not produce results for everyone...", Irena Beqiraj assesses./ Faktoje.al