The issue of special pensions, intensely debated in the past few days, brings into the spotlight a dramatic fact for a country like Romania: a quarter of Romanians aged between 45 and 65 are not working. Consolidated data reveal an even more dramatic situation: 40% of people aged between 45 and 65 are unemployed.

According to data of the Statistics Institute, out of the 5.2 million people currently aged between 45 and 65 (the retirement age for men according to the new pension law), 2 million are not employed. The figure amounts to more than half the number of Romanian pensioners or half the number of social security recipients, who last year amounted to nearly 5.5 million. This compares with 4.3 million employees at the end of last year.

In this light, the discussion of the past few days on the decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice to suspend the recalculation of special pensions of the military, of former police workers and of former special services workers, is only the tip of the iceberg. It is not just the 150,000-200,000 special pensions (for which nearly one billion euros is spent a year) that stifle the insurance budget, which needs to be subsidised directly and from the state budget (basically from taxes), but also the general situation, which can hardly be expected to go on like that.

"Since 1990 we have lost four million jobs. Some of the former employees left Romania, some receive unemployment benefits, some simply don't work, and some work on the black market. A solution would be to start building factories again, because not everybody can work as a hypermarket employee," believes Vladimir Pasti, sociologist and political commentator specialising in the study of political and social developments in the Romanian transition.

The issue of special pensions, intensely debated in the past few days, bri