Pellegrini: Pensioners to Receive One-off Bonus of €300 by Year's End

        Bratislava, November 21 (TASR) - Pensioners will receive a one-off bonus of €300, instead of the originally promised €150, as an additional €220 million has been found in the budget after talks with Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenicky (Smer-SD), House Chair Peter Pellegrini and Labour Minister Erik Tomas (both Voice-SD) announced at a press conference on Tuesday.
        Voice-SD is attempting to promote fully fledged 13th pensions. Their payment won't start this year but as of next year, however, for technical reasons. Currently, 13th pensions are paid as a social contribution worth €50-300, according to the incomes of individual pensioners. Because of this, the Labour Minister has submitted and the government approved a one-off bonus of €150, which will be received by pensioners as early as this year, with Parliament slated to discuss the bill this week via a fast-tracked procedure.
        "Today, an amending proposal will be submitted that will double the sum. Hence, on a proposal of the Labour Ministry, the government and coalition, Slovak seniors will receive an additional €300 each by Christmas," claimed Pellegrini. When this is added to existing Christmas pension bonus, seniors might receive an additional €350-600 this year.
        Tomas added that Voice-SD has helped pensioners to weather soaring inflation several times already. "Only thanks to a bill sponsored by Voice-SD were pensions increased1 by an additional 10.6 percent on July , only thanks to bills sponsored by Voice-SD have minimum pensions been thawed out after a period of three years during which they were frozen by the government of Igor Matovic," claimed Tomas.