December 26 (BTA) - In the outgoing year 2021, social policy was rehabilitated in Bulgaria as frequent elections made social concerns super important for all political parties, Balkan Institute for Labour and Social Policy (BILSP) Chairman Ivan Neykov told BTA. The former labour minister was approached by the national news agency for his take on social policy developments in Bulgaria in 2021.

"The icing on the cake was the adjustment of pensions, which was done at the end of the year," Neykov said. "It had been awaited for a very long time. None of the parliamentary forces was against it. The parties realized that the change had to be made."

One wrong step taken this year was that the pension policies blurred the distinction between social insurance and social assistance, he said. Anti-COVID and anti-poverty benefits were provided as pension money. Pensions should depend on past contributions, while social assistance should depend mainly on the needs of the recipient. The mistake will be carried over into 2022, when anti-COVID supplements will again be distributed evenly. "Many people went the hard way in learning one of the main laws in the social domain: it is very easy to give and very difficult to stop giving even if giving is wrong," Neykov said.

According to him, the biggest problem in the social domain is the shortage of services. "We need an entirely different policy which encourages the provision of services. The politicians did not ask the older people what services they needed. They just gave them an extra 50 or 100 leva and told them that this would improve their lives. This is far from correct."

"The year 2021 cannot be labeled either as terrible or as wonderful. There were various situations for various industries," the expert went on to comment.

"We forgot about the people with disabilities. We should bring them back onto the labour market," Neykov urged. He added that changing the occupational ability assessment system is one of the greatest challenges facing the new leadership of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy. The work of people with disabilities is just one of dozens of questions of labour legislation whose solution has been delayed.

BILSP studies show that over 100,000 persons with disabilities can be very active on the labour market. "Their inclusion is imperative both because they need to integrate socially and because employers need workers," Neykov argued. He noted that assessing a person's occupational abilities should focus on what the person can do, rather than what he cannot do. "In this way, these people will become much more useful to themselves and society," he said. VE

Photo: BILSP

Source: Sofia