Pensions will be increased by five percent, minimum around 300 euros

Pensions for Montenegrin pensioners will be increased by five percent, and the minimum pension will amount to around 300 euros.

The increase will start from the September pension.

This was decided today at the Government session.

The Minister of Finance, Aleksandar Damjanović, said that in this way, the minimum pension will be two-thirds of the minimum wage, which is 450 euros.

"That was our promise to pensioners. There are about 30.000 of those pensioners. Compared to what we found last year in April, this is an evident shift. The desire is to create the conditions for the PIO Fund to finance everything through its own income and without transfers from the budget these obligations. We hereby strongly confirm that all talk of abolishing the PIO Fund would be catastrophic. The PIO Fund financed itself for the most part this year. It will be desirable in the coming period to create conditions for voluntary pension funds that have never come to life," said Damjanović.

He said that the average pension, which has now exceeded 400 euros, will also increase and the wish is for it to be 60 percent of the average salary.

"The creation of the budget policy in the coming year must be careful with regard to the PIO Fund and the conditions for further growth of pensions should be created," Damjanović pointed out.