Slovakia backs pension cuts for former communist officials

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovakia’s Parliament approved legislation on Wednesday that reduces pensions paid to members of the former communist regime.

Prime Minister Eduard Heger said the aim of the law was to correct “a terrible contrast” between the unjustifiably high pensions received by those who persecuted people, and the low pensions of those who were persecuted.

It is estimated that about 5,000 people will be affected by the law that is set to become effective in August. It still needs approval from President Zuzana Caputova.

It targets those who worked for the communist government and its security and other institutions “whose main aim was to keep the communist regime in power at any cost.”

The reduction will be calculated on the basis of how many years they were employed in these positions.

Those who helped prosecute people, or athletes who were formally members of military and police sports clubs, will not have their pensions cut.

The anti-communist Velvet Revolution led by late Vaclav Havel ended more than 40 years of communism in 1989. Slovakia became an independent state after the peaceful split of Czechoslovakia in 1993.

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