Proposed Higher Retirement Age for Ministry of Interior Employees

The Fiscal Council has issued a proposal to increase the retirement age for employees of the Ministry of Interior, arguing based on early retirement and budget pressures.

In a Facebook post, the institution poses the question of why nearly 11,000 employees who have reached retirement age continue to work. The answer they provide is brief: "Because they retire too early."

Currently, police officers, military personnel, and public servants in the "Security" sector become eligible for a pension at the age of 54 years and 6 months with 27 years of service, at least 18 of which must have been spent in the system.

The Fiscal Council suggests that frontline employees should retire at 56, similar to the practice in Romania. "All others should retire at 64 years and 9 months," they further note.

At the beginning of July, the chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association, Vasil Velev, announced that 7,057 Ministry of Interior employees would receive both a salary and a pension for the same month. "And social security contributions, for an even larger pension in the future," he added.

According to him, such a practice is only possible in extremely wealthy countries. "But even they don't do it! Because the state has no money. It takes it from the working people in the economy, and in other countries, they don't allow it," Velev stated.

He cited data from a Fiscal Council report, according to which, per 100,000 population, there are on average 300 police officers globally, 313 in the European Union, and 421 in Bulgaria.

According to the draft budget for 2026, expenditures for the Ministry of Interior amount to 2,115,233,200 euros, with 1,972,559,400 euros of that allocated for personnel. "If we divide the personnel costs by 12, we get 164,379,950 euros per month. Now, what number of staff do we divide by? There are two numbers in the media (with rounding) – 55,000 established positions, with 50,000 occupied. Well, we divide by the number of employed and we get 3,287 euros average labor cost per employee per month. Pensions are separate," Velev explained.

He added that a similar situation is observed in the judicial system, defense, as well as in the state and municipal administration.

As early as the beginning of June, Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev announced that as of April 30, 1,098 Ministry of Interior employees had reached retirement age. "288 employees reached retirement age less than a year ago, 244 less than 2 years ago, 199 less than 3 years ago, 124 less than 4 years ago, and 243 more than 5 years ago," he specified.