Interior Ministry softens planned radical police reform

The Interior Ministry is partially withdrawing from its earlier planned radical reform of the retirement scheme for police officers. Deputy Interior Minister Adam Rapacki is expected to make an announcement to this effect later today.

Currently 100,000 police officers are entitled to retire after just 15 years of work. In 2007, every fifth police officer who decided to retire was below the age of 40. The retirement schemes for police and army officials cost the tax payers some zl.9 billion annually.

At the beginning of the year, Interior Minister Grzegorz Schetyna, announced that police officers will have to work for a further ten more years before retirement. However, pressure from the profession has forced the Interior Minister to review this move and it currently plans to prolong the period by just five years.

Moreover, it was decided that the new scheme will not include officers who joined the services after January 1, 1999, as was planned earlier, but it will only affect those who will begin working in 2011.

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