Czech President Václav Klaus has signed into law legislation slowing the
growth of old age pensions over the next three years, the president’s
spokesman Radim Ochvat revealed. By doing so, the president declined calls
by the opposition Social Democrats and the country’s Senior Citizens
Council to reject the bill. Last week, the Chamber of Deputies passed the
bill again,
overriding a veto by the Left wing-dominated Senate. Under the amendment,
pensions will be indexed over a period of three years starting in 2013
with
one third of the growth in prices and one third of the rise in real wages.
The amendment is part of the government’s austerity measures aimed at
decreasing the deficit.