Russian deputy prime minister says no plans to raise pension age

(Interfax – October 20, 2015)

Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets has said that the Russian government is not yet planning to raise the pension age.

“We are not planning this over the period of time we use for planning. No, we are not,” Golodets told journalists on Tuesday [20 October] when asked when the government was planning to resume discussions about a rise in the pension age.

At the same time, she neither confirmed nor denied media reports, quoting anonymous sources, that the government commission on legislation has approved the Russian Labour Ministry’s proposals for a stage-by-stage increase in the pension age to 65 for officials and municipal employees.

A day earlier, Russian Economic Development Minister Aleksey Ulyukayev expressed the view that there is no alternative to raising the pension age and that he proposes that it should rise to 63 for both men and women.

Meanwhile, the head of the Duma labour committee, Olga Batalina, said on Tue! sday that it did not make sense to argue about a possible rise in the pension age.

“The president and the prime minister have said repeatedly that Russia is not currently ready to raise the pension because life expectancy is not high. I consider other discussions on this theme to be pointless,” Batalina told journalists.

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