Early Retirement in the Republic of Croatia

Članak obrađuje institut prijevremenog umirovljenja prema propisima Republike Hrvatske koji reguliraju sustav mirovinskog osiguranja prije započete mirovinske reforme s početka 1999. godine, kao i usporedbu s institutom ranijeg umirovljenja nakon mirovinske reforme. Institut prijevremenog umirovljenja postoji gotovo u svim europskim državama, a posebice je bio popularan u državama jugoistočne Europe, zbog relativno blagih uvjeta za stjecanje prava. Ti se sustavi razlikuju po uvjetima pod kojima se pravo na prijevremeno umirovljenje ostvaruje, kao i načinu određivanja prijevremene mirovine. Države jugoistočne Europe propisivale su prilično blage uvjete za stjecanje prava na prijevremenu starosnu mirovinu prije provedenih reformi, a prijevremene mirovine ostvarivale su se u relativno visokim iznosima, koji u pravilu nisu bili puno niži od visine starosne mirovine, koja se u prosjeku ostvaruje pet godina kasnije. Navedeno dovodi do toga da je ostvarivanje prava na prijevremenu starosnu mirovinu bilo vrlo interesantno velikom broju potencijalnih korisnika te se koristi ne kao iznimka od ostvarivanja prava na starosnu mirovinu, već kao pravilo čim se ispune uvjeti za ostvarivanje prava. Tome posebno pogoduje loša gospodarska situacija u kojoj radnici kojima prijeti gubitak radnog mjesta, ostvarivanje prava na prijevremenu starosnu mirovinu doživljavaju kao jedini izlaz iz novonastale situacije, uzevši u obzir da je traženje novog posla nakon doživljenja određene starosne dobi vrlo teško, ponekad gotovo nemoguće. Nakon provedbe mirovinskih reformi, pravila koja propisuju rano umirovljenje postala su vrlo slična u svim europskim državama.The subject of paper is the review of early retirement system in the Republic of Croatia before pension reform, which began at the beginning of 1999, and a comparison with the system after the introduction of reforms. Early retirement system is a part of pension insurance system in almost every European country, and was particularly popular in South-Eastern European countries, due to rather generous schemes. These systems are different, regarding conditions for entitlements to the early retirement, as well as regarding the amount of pensions. South-Eastern European countries have prescribed rather generous conditions for early retirement before the commencement of pension reforms, and at the same time the amounts of the early retirement pensions were relatively high. Those amounts were only slightly below the amount of old-age pension, although the right to an anticipatory pension could be acquired in average up to five years before the old-age pension. Therefore, the early retirement was very interesting for a large number of potential beneficiaries, so this kind of pension was not treated as an exemption, but as a rule for retirement as soon as people were entitled to it. Economic crisis is a kind of trigger for obtaining the right to early retirement, because sometimes it is the only way out of a new situation where job seeking could be rather unsuccessful due to bad conditions caused by the economic crisis. However, after the introduction of reforms, the rules for early retirement are more or less similar in all European countries