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ECONOMY
In anticipation of the pay for, the low salaries and bases for con- European continent as well (Hungary,
upcoming elections, tributions cause a low amount of accu- Poland). This indicates that for the pri-
it would be important mulated funds per member. The average vate pension insurance, there is a signifi-
not only for the current assets of the compulsory pension funds cant systemic risk of political-regulatory
retirees, but also for per member are approximately 104 thou- nature. Considering the propensity of
the pension funds and sand denars whereby every member has a our political elites, regardless of the pro-
for the members of the different amount of accumulated assets venience, to flirt with populism, there is
second pillar, to have in his/her individual account depending risk for our multi-pillar pension system
an opportunity to hear on the contribution that this person paid to face with such unfavorable political
the attitudes of the and the time of membership. Despite of decisions. In other words, one cannot
political parties about the level of economic development, one exclude the danger that some of our fu-
the deficit in the state of the causes which contributes for the ture political powers instead of a battle
pension pillar and how unfavorable structure of membership ac- with the unregistered economic activ-
its rehabilitation is cording to the received net-salary are of ity and its negative consequences with
planned course the effects of the grey economy a slight resistance, decides to reach the
and the scope of information income for accumulated funds in the second pillar
the performed work which are actually with an explanation that “a large reform
not recorded and registered at all, and is being implemented” or “it protects the
they lead towards improper represen- interests of the retirees”. One cannot ex-
tation of the base for calculation of the clude the scenario where the benevolent
contributions and minimum amounts of messages, such as the ones from IMF’s
payments in the compulsory pillar. report on “significant narrowing of the
fiscal space”, would be misinterpreted,
The potential problems which arise so instead of a motive for conducting the
from the practice of unregistered in- required structural reforms, they could
come for the performed work and pay- be used as justification for procedures of
ment of minimum contribution in the de facto nationalization of expropriation
compulsory pension pillar are related of pension assets. Someone will explain
to the creation of expressed inequality that such “dark” scenarios are not fea-
in the distribution of funds per specific sible in Macedonia because the assets in
members. This may lead to materializa- the pension funds according to the law,
tion of future social risk, and ultimately are ownership and personal property of
it may cause the pension insurance not their members, and our Constitution as
to accomplish its basic goal – provision a fundamental value indicates the “le-
of material and social security of future gal protection of ownership”. However,
retirees. This is particularly important in the examples from Hungary and Poland
light of the fact that in some countries showed that when the power decided
which conducted similar reforms of the to get to the property of the citizens, it
system of pension insurance, there were will find a way to do this. Therefrom, in
political decisions for full or partial can- anticipation of the upcoming elections,
cellation of the effects of the reforms, so it would be important not only for the
called “reverse reforms”. More specifi- current retirees, but also for the pension
cally, the political authorities, by taking funds and for the members of the second
specific systemic measures and legal pillar, to have an opportunity to hear the
changes, make a sort of nationalization attitudes of the political parties about
of funds from the compulsory pension the deficit in the state pension pillar and
funds, using them for strengthening of how its rehabilitation is planned. Some-
their fiscal position or for reduction of how the offered answers will provide
the level of public debt. Thereby, if for a clear signal whether our country will
the period before the Global financial cri- move towards complete functional mar-
sis, such processes were typical of coun- ket economy or it would once again re-
tries from Latin America, in the past few turn towards central planned economic
years, as the budget problems became in- management.
tense, such occurrences emerged in the
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