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World Jewish News
Israel Beitenu Creates Commission to Get Pensions From CIS Countries
20.03.2009
With the expected appointment of Avigdor Liberman to the post of the MIA and Vice-Premier, Jerusalem has stepped up its efforts to negotiate treaties with the republics of the former Soviet Union about pensions for their former citizens who currently reside in Israel.
This information was provided to the IzRus portal by the president of the Beitenu fraction and the head of the parliament lobby on this question, Robert Ilatov. He added that within the framework of coalition negotiations the Beitenu party has already achieved the creation of a Knesset committee on the question of payment of pensions from the former Soviet Union for Israelites. It is expected that all Russian-speaking deputies will be part of this committee. Also, the chairman of the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu made a promise to the Russian-speaking elderly before the elections, to be personally involved in this question should he be elected to the post of Prime Minister.
Israel politicians first tried more or less organized approached to this question in June 2006, when a sub-commission on "the restoration of social and pensional rights of new repatriates from countries of the Exodus" was created in Knesset. It was headed by the 2006 deputy of the "Democratic choice" fraction, Roman Bronfman. The main task the organizators placed before themselves was "to coordinate the actions of parliamentarians, governmental agencies and institutions, which work on returning social rights from countries of the former Soviet Union."
After the Beitenu entered the government of Ehud Olmert, Avigdor Liberman initiated the creation of an inter-departmental commission on this problem. Its president was the vice-premier and minister of strategic planning himself. He thought that the "algorithm of solving such a difficult task, according to international judicial norms, consists only of signing inter-governmental treaties between Israel and the republics of the former Soviet Union." That was the first time when, with the participation of the Institute of National Insurance (Bituach Leumi), negotiations were begun on this problem with Ukraine, Russia, Azerbajian, Kazakhstan, and the Baltic countries. Liberman himself discussed the problem with presidents Victor Yuschenko and Ilham Aliev, as well as with the head of the Russian Chamber of Accounts Sergey Stepaschin.
However, with the exit of Beitenu from the government in January 2008, the inter-departmental commission on pensions ceased to exist. "With the exit of the Beitenu party from the coalition, nobody wants to work on the questions of pensions from FSU countries. The chairman of the Beitenu had been the head of the governmental commission that worked on this topic, and it was under his leadership that the most progress was made," as the head of the Knesset commission ofor aliyah and absorption Michael Nudelman (Kadima) stated in April 2008.
When speaking before representatives of public repatriate organizations in October 2008, Liberman voiced his perplexity about the fact that nobody else was appointed to this commission and that "the government simply refused to attend to the subject of pensions." He promised to take actions to re-create this structure.
Robert Ilatov, head of the parliamentary Association "Israel-Russia" and the chairman of the Beitenu fraction, took active participation in the negotiations with the CIS countries on this question during the previous cadence of the Knesset. In November 2008, he initiated the creation of a parliamentary lobby on this topic. Now he is concerned that the economic crisis, which has severely impacted the CIS and Baltic republics, will seriously complicate the progress towards the signing of the appropriate inter-governmental pacts. "The problem is that because of the landslide of prices for oil, and because of the global economic crisis, the state of affairs in most CIS countries has become rather sad." Ilatov noted in an interview to the IzRus portal. "The situation is difficult, the perspectives aren't particularly bright, but this is a matter of principle. I hope that we can put pressure on the governments of the CIS and help the repatriates return their rights."
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