YEREVAN. – Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan on Tuesday convened a meeting with respect to Armenia’s Law on Funded Pensions.  

Representatives from the ruling Republican Party, non-pro-government Prosperous Armenia, and opposition Heritage, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, and Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law) National Assembly (NA) Factions participated in the talk. 
The discussants stressed the need for a political-cooperation-like format and underscored its continuity, informed the Press Office of the Government.   

Representatives of the political forces considered it indispensable to outline avenues for cooperation between the parliamentary forces and the Government.

In turn, Abrahamyan assured that he draws attention to cooperation with the parliamentary factions and stands ready for further dialogue. 

Subsequently, representatives of the political forces expressed their positions on the pension reforms and offered a variety of proposals.  

The PM recalled that a bill will be drafted in the shortest possible time, wherewith the NA will stop the calculation of fines until the adoption of the legislative package, which is envisioned by the April 2 ruling of the Constitutional Court, and concerning the Law on Funded Pensions.      

In addition, Hovik Abrahamyan expressed willingness to continue the discussions to solve the problems in the pension system.

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.