YEREVAN. – Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan on Tuesday has set up a discussion, with the six National Assembly (NA) factions, concerning the mandatory component of Armenia’s new pension law.  

Non-pro-government Prosperous Armenia Party NA Faction Secretary Naira Zohrabyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am that they received the respective invitation and they will participate in the discussion.

“No matter what, our position is the same: the mandatory component must be removed,” she added.

In turn, ruling Republican Party NA Faction Head Galust Sahakyan told us that they, too, will take part in the discussion.

Opposition Heritage Party NA Faction, on the other hand, has convened a meeting to decide whether or not to participate in the discussion, Faction Head Ruben Hakobyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

On April 2, the Constitutional Court (CC) of Armenia declared unconstitutional a whole series of articles in the new Law on Funded Pensions. Despite this ruling, however, the state-run financial institutions still oblige the employers to make mandatory funded pension cuts from the salaries of their employees. The respective reasoning is that the CC gave the parliament and the government until September 30 to amend the aforesaid law’s provisions that were deemed unconstitutional.