CYPRUS: Protest Against Raising Retirement Age

CYPRUS, Nicosia (Cyprus Mail), December 28, 2007: Around 400 students protested outside the presidential palace yesterday lunchtime over the government’s decision to raise the retirement age from 60 to 63, police said. The students remained outside the palace for about an hour, chanting slogans about raising the retirement age and the government’s failure to create non-profit universities. The Organisation of Cyprus Students’ Unions representatives met with President Tassos Papadopoulos to hand over a memorandum, police said. Speaking to reporters following a meeting with four POFEN representatives, Papadopoulos said he’d explained that the retirement age increase only applied to the civil service. “Of course the government cannot legislate for the private sector,” he said. The president said raising the retirement age to 63 would not affect students’ ambitions to join the civil service. He also said the majority of places in the civil service were positions of promotion and that by retiring at 63 instead of 60 did not necessarily mean more entry level places were created. “Of course the issue of the 63rd year has been discussed numerously, including during a previous meeting we held about 40 days ago, and we have disagreed on this issue,” Papadopoulos said. The president said the decision to raise the retirement age had been made by the public who had decided that it preferable to raising social insurance and pension fund payments. “Let me stress that the Pension Fund and Social Insurance, is basically, the people’s money: six per cent is paid by the employer, six per cent by the employee and only 3.5 per cent by the government. “Therefore it is their money and they have to think about how to ensure that the fund is sufficiently strong so that after 2020 they can be certain that there is the necessary amount for them to receive a pension,” Papadopoulos said. During his meeting with the students the president said he had also discussed his pre-election programme and to explain that the government’s promises had been fulfilled. By Alexia Saoulli Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2007