The president of the SDP party's Forum of Seniors, Ivo Jelusic, said on Tuesday the party has a two-point plan as to how to raise the average pension from the current amount of €500 to 750, which he described as realistic and feasible.

Presenting the pension reform proposal, Jelusic told a news conference that its first measure refers to changing the existing formula for pension indexation, which takes into account price and wage growth, and the last such adjustment of 8.42% was in August.

Jelusic believes that for pensioners inflation grew much more than the official rate, and that the existing indexation formula is no longer sufficient to maintain pensions at a realistic level.

Our proposal refers to changing the indexation formula by taking into account only one factor, either price growth or wage growth, whichever is more favourable for pensioners, he said.

The second measure refers to a four-year period and is about the introduction of a so-called permanent supplement of an average 10% for the first year, but it would not be linear and it would depend on the amount of one’s pension, and of 5% each for the other three years.

This is a concrete and implementable proposal, and is also fiscally viable, the only question is if the HDZ wants to accept it. It is evident that the HDZ wants to help the rich and expects the poor to vote for it, but I hope that won’t happen this time, Jelusic said.

The head of the SDP’s Osijek-Baranja County branch, Sanja Bjezancevic, warned about statistics showing that one in three pensioners above 65 are at risk of poverty, that 50,000 pensioners have their bank accounts frozen and that in terms of state allocations for that group of citizens, Croatia is at the bottom of EU rankings.