By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

The ink has not yet had time to dry on the mini insurance bill that is being voted on today in the Parliamentand in the Ministry of Labor they have already begun to study their next moves.

This time, according to Adonis Georgiadis, the ministry’s interest will be focused on pensioners with a sum of main pensions over €1400 who for the last 13 years, since 2010, have been obliged to pay the so-called pensioner solidarity contribution. This special contribution – which brings in approximately €500 million to the public coffers every year – is imposed on approximately 1 million pensioners with rates of 3% to 14%, but it has the … global originality that it is imposed on the entire pension.

In the next bill of the Ministry of Labor that is expected to be passed in the first quarter of 2024, this changes and the rates will be applied not to the entire pension but to the excess of €1400, which will also be divided into tiers. In other words, the deduction will be applied to a much smaller amount, and the new system, as they say in the Ministry of Labor, will be fairer and more proportional. In the end, pensioners will end up paying less despite the fact that the lower rate is expected to be significantly higher than the current 3%. For the needs of the… pain, I will use in the examples as a minimum coefficient of reservations the one used by the minister of labor himself speaking on SKAI TV and Giorgos Autias.

Based on the current regulations, the EAS scale provides for:

Contribution Pension
3% €1,400-€1,700
6% €1,701-€2,000
7% €2,001-€2,300
9% €2,301-€2,600
10% €2,601-€2,900
12% €2,901-€3,200
13% €3,201-€3,500
14% >€3,501

Thus, a pensioner, for example, of €1,700 is subject to a monthly withholding of €1,700 x 3% = €51.
With the new system, the EAS will not be imposed on the entire pension but on the excess of €1400, i.e. €300. If we assume that the first rate will indeed be at 10%, the pensioner’s burden drops to €30, reduced by €21 or 67%. The annual benefit amounts to 21×12 = €252

A pensioner of €1,900 pays with the current scheme €1,900 x 6% = €114/month.

With the new regime – provided that these will be the final rates – his charge will be:

€300 x 10% = €30
€200 x 12 = €24
Total: €30+€24 = €54 with a monthly reduction of €60

An alternative scenario, which at the moment does not gather the most possibilities, is the reduction in half of the current rates. That is, the pensioner of €1,900 should pay €57 per month instead of €114.

In addition to the burdensome and unfairness of the measure, which are obvious, the Ministry of Labor still remembers the horrible complaints made last year by thousands of pensioners who saw the significant increase of 7.75% either “scissored” or even “swallowed” from EAS. Complaints that will unfortunately exist again this year.

For example, a pensioner of €1390 is currently not burdened with a solidarity contribution. However, with the increase of 3% – the payment of the increased pensions starts today – his pension increases by €41.7, exceeds €1400 and immediately falls to the EAS scale with the “sadest” €42.9. In other words, he ends up after the 3% increase, with less money in his pocket.