Poland’s government is proposing to divert some of the money workers set aside in private pension schemes into the public system in an attempt to keep public debt from rising too high.

Jacek Rostowski, finance minister, said on Wednesday that the plan would be to cut the percentage of employee salaries going into the private system from 7.3 per cent to 3 per cent by the second half of next year: the 4.3 percentage point differential would then be added to existing contributions to the public system.