Trade chamber head against early retirement plan

Calls to allow men to retire after 40 years are “irresponsible”, the head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry says. Hungary’s biggest challenge in the past few years has been to maintain the budget balance, László Parragh told public television news channel M1, and lowering the retirement age would reduce tax revenues insupportably and erode the national pension fund. Any move to bring the retirement rules in line with those for women would necessitate tax rises, he said. The opposition Socialists recently voiced support for a trade union referendum initiative to allow men – as women can currently do – to retire after 40 years of employment. “The whole thing hasn’t been thought through; it is dishonest and wrongheaded,” Parragh said.