The State Budget of Ukraine for 2025 brought a new initiative from the Cabinet of Ministers to reduce special pensions for certain categories, including judges and prosecutors. According to the plan, these pensions may be limited to 23,000 hryvnias per month. Payments exceeding this amount will likely be reduced by applying special coefficients.
How are they planning to reduce special pensions?
The Cabinet proposes to apply a new approach to payments, where everything exceeding 23,000 hryvnias will be restricted by special coefficients determined by the government. For example, if a prosecutor’s pension is 60,000 hryvnias, they will receive the full amount only for the first 23,000, while the remaining 37,000 will be subject to reduction. This reduction can be a percentage of the sum ranging from 100% to 0%, depending on the specific coefficient.
Legislative changes by mid-2025
In addition to implementing limits, the Cabinet of Ministers must develop and submit changes to the legislation regarding the pension provision for individuals receiving so-called “special pensions” to the parliament for consideration. By July 1, 2025, the government plans to propose establishing uniform approaches to calculating and indexing pensions regardless of changes in salaries.
Sharp increase in expenses for special pensions
Currently, Ukraine has around 10 million pensioners, most of whom receive an average pension of 4623 hryvnias. At the same time, there are 780 thousand individuals receiving special pensions, costing the state budget hundreds of billions of hryvnias annually. In just the first nine months of 2024, around 88 billion hryvnias were spent on these pensions, and by the end of the year, this amount could increase to 120 billion.
Significant disparity in payments
Military personnel and law enforcement officers receive an average pension of about 9,400 hryvnias per month, while prosecutors receive an average of 21,500 hryvnias, which is 4.5 times higher than the country’s average pension. However, the real “record holders” are judges who receive an average of 96,000 hryvnias per month, which is 21 times higher than the average pension.
Court Decisions and Debts of the Pension Fund
Some prosecutors and law enforcement officers, dissatisfied with the limit of 23,000 hryvnias, challenge their pensions in court and demand significantly higher payments. As of the year 2024, the Pension Fund already owes military personnel and judges 44.4 billion hryvnias due to court decisions. In one year, these debts grew by 37.2 billion, putting considerable pressure on the budget and forcing the government to seek ways to reduce these expenses.
Will the New Approach Help Save the Budget?
The new proposals from the Cabinet of Ministers are aimed at ensuring a fair distribution of pension funds and reducing the gap between special pensions and average pensions for the population. However, the question remains open – will the government be able to find a balance between the needs of the state budget and social justice for all categories of pensioners.
