North Macedonia's Mickoski says second pension pillar returns are a third of agreed level

North Macedonia's Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said the government is weighing several possible solutions to close the pension insurance fund's annual gap of about 1 billion euros. Speaking after the Fiscal Council called for urgent reform, Mickoski said the companies managing payments to the second pension pillar yield returns three times lower than was agreed 20 years ago, adding, "This cannot continue."

Mickoski said some Central European countries, including Hungary and Poland, have fully nationalised the second pillar, while the Nordic-Baltic model involved halting payments into the mandatory second pillar for a year or longer. He also said the government is considering a solution that would let citizens decide whether their money goes only to the state pillar or also to private pension funds.

The Fiscal Council warned a month earlier that the total deficit of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund (PIOM), including obligations to the second pillar and pensioners' health insurance, had reached about 1 billion euros a year. Mickoski stressed that whichever option is chosen, citizens' savings in the second pillar belong to them and they will not lose them.