President Pavel’s efforts to mediate pension reform fail

President Petr Pavel’s efforts to mediate a broad agreement on the pension reform have hit the rocks. Monday’s scheduled meeting with Labour Minister Marian Jurečka is going ahead, but the main opposition party ANO cancelled its participation at the talks late last week, saying it would not take co-responsibility for something that the government intends to push through with or without its support. The government's proposal envisages raising the retirement age according to life expectancy, introducing a different basis for calculating old-age pensions, a lower indexation of pensions and a minimum pension amounting to 20 percent of the average wage. ANO has said that if it wins the 2025 general elections and gets to form a government it will scrap the legislation.