Jovan Krkobabic: “Public sector salaries and pensions should not be increased in 2010”

Belgrade, Feb. 05, 2010 (Serbia Today) – Deputy PM Jovan Krkobabić said on Tuesday that the public sector salaries and pensions should not be increased in 2010, according to report by Serbian News Agency Tanjug.
Such a move would create the necessary conditions for their growth in 2011, he said, but added that pensions will have to be increased if the freeze on the public sector salaries were to be lifted. "The Serbian government decided to freeze the pensions and public sector salaries in 2010 when it adopted the budget for that year, and it is my strong view that the country's economy should be stabilized by the end of the year by investing all resources, both those domestic and foreign ones, like those coming from international financial institutions and business banks, to speed up the economic development and stabilize the economy," Krkobabić said. Krkobabić stressed that if salaries get raised in September in accordance with the announcements made by Minister of Economy Mlađan Dinkić, then the Party of United Pensioners of Serbia (PUPS), led by Krkobabić, will demand that the freeze on pensions be lifted as well. "Regardless of the agreement to freeze the salaries in 2009 as well, they went up by 7.1 percent, while the pensions stayed the same. If that were to happen again in 2010, then the PUPS would demand categorically that the pensions be raised by approximately the same percentage," Krkobabić noted. "We will not come out of the crisis if we do not stick to what the basic economic logic says, and that is to ensure a gradual recovery and growth of the economy before thinking about increasing salaries and pensions," Krkobabić concluded.