To reduce the very high pension fund deficit that threatens the viability of the pay-as-you go system and to improve its fairness and ability to provide adequate pensions over time, we will, by end-December 2016, adopt legislation (a new structural benchmark) to:

(i) gradually adjust the statutory retirement age and further reduce the scope for early retirement; (ii) tighten the eligibility criteria for the minimum pension; (iii) consolidate pension legislation, which is now spread across about two dozen laws, and ensure a single principle for providing pensions without privileges for any occupation (with the exception of the military); (iv) expand the base for social security contributions; (v) ensure equitable tax treatment of pensions; and (vi) better link benefits to contributions, also to encourage the declaration of actual incomes. In addition, we will separate various categorical pension supplements from the labor pensions, bring their financing from the pension fund to the state budget and improve their targeting starting from 2017 to make the system more equitable and free up resources for more efficient poverty alleviation