Defense and Interior Minister and Head of RIS, on Trial

The Romanian Reserve and Retired Military Staff unionists filed criminal complaints at the General Prosecution Office against the heads of the Defense Ministry, of the Interior Ministry and of the Romanian Intelligence Service, as well as against Prime Minister Emil Boc, mainly accusing them of "breaking court rulings".

The Retired Military unionists claim that recalculating the pensions of military staff will cause many pensions to be reduced, but Maria Lupu, the Defense Ministry Financial Department chief, says otherwise.

"No pension under 3,000 lei belonging to those with a full military career was reduced as a result of the recalculation", declared Maria Lupu.

Union leader Mircea Dogaru, reserve colonel, believes that the pension cuts affect many retired military men and women.

"As far as I know, the recalculation affects more than 90% of the 83,000 Defense Ministry retired military officers and 66,000 Interior Ministry retired officers. They ostentatiously increased a pension here and there, but most military staff pensions were reduced dramatically. Actually, we are not even part of the military anymore, this status was taken away from us; we are now, by law, on the dole".

"To my knowledge, there are only 2,000 individuals who have full military career so far. There is a huge misunderstanding about this. Sometimes, you are considered to have full military seniority at the age of 55 – in that case, I would have entered the army at 54 and got retired at 55 and had full seniority, right?’ – and at other times, seniority is considered to depend on how many years you paid your contributions’, Mircea Dogaru added.

The board of the Military Retirees Association in the Romanian Intelligence Service believes that filing criminal complaints at this point is ill-founded, since the process of recalculating the pensions is still unfolding.

Translated by: Ruxandra Câmpeanu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University