Within the next two months it will be ready platform for debt pensions, as announced by the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security, Panos Tsakloglouin an interview on ERT radio.

Specifically, Mr. Tsakloglou said: “With the previous regime, someone could get a pension if their debts to EFKA were up to 20,000 euros and up to 6,000 euros if they were a farmer. We changed these limits from 20,000 euros to 30,000 euros and from 6,000 euros to 10,000 euros, on the condition that the insured has at least paid contributions for at least 20 years and, furthermore, his bank deposits do not exceed 12,000 euros, so that only those who are truly insolvent are helped.

The relevant platform for submitting applications will be ready within two months.

Thereafter, 60% of the pension will be withheld, until the debt is reduced to 20,000 euros and from then on the current rules will apply.”

To a question about it with the maternity allowance, the Deputy Minister of Labor replied the following: “The government pursues two goals. The first is reconciling family and professional life and the second is helping young couples to have the number of children they desire.

Over the past four years, we have extended maternity pay for private sector employees from six to nine months. With the latest bill of the Ministry of Labor, we provide for nine months to the self-employed, the freelancers and the farmers, an allowance equal to the minimum wage, i.e. 830 euros.

At the same time, with the maternity allowance we also took other measures to strengthen the family such as the maternity allowance, the increase in the number of available places in nurseries and kindergartens, the “Neighborhood Nannies” and the housing policy, with an emphasis on young people’.

Regarding the retiree employment platform, Mr. Tsakloglou noted: “Until recently, if a retiree worked, he had a 30% cut in his pension. In fact, under Katrougalos, this percentage was 60%. We have recently changed this regime and a working pensioner normally takes their pension in full and there will be a 10% cut in the salary they receive.

The working pensioners, with the previous regime, were about 36,000 and already on the platform they have declared that they wish to be employed around 75,000 people and this number continues to increase.”

Regarding the six-day work, the deputy minister clarified that the six-day work it concerns either businesses that are in continuous operation, or businesses where an unexpected increase in needs is observed for a short period of time. In fact, he clarified that the six-day work is considered overtime and has a 40% pay increase, while the regulation does not concern hotels and restaurants.

Finally, regarding the Auxiliary Capitalization Insurance Fund (TEKA), Mr. Tsakloglou underlined: “Our pension system is distributive, that is, the contributions of current employees pay the pensions of current retirees. These systems work seamlessly, when we have many workers and few pensioners. In Greece, at the moment, only 1.7 workers correspond to one pensioner.

Already, since the 1980s, most countries have started to strengthen existing or create new capitalization systems, which are not subject to the demographic risk – next to the distribution systems. In Greece, for the first time, this was done with TEKA, three years ago.

An individual account is created for each insured person, into which the supplementary insurance contributions are deposited, invested and, when the moment of retirement arrives, the insured person will receive a pension corresponding to his contributions and the returns on his investments.

In addition to the diversification of the insurance risk, based on the experience of countries with mature capitalization systems, TEKA insured persons can expect supplementary pensions considerably higher than those of the existing distribution system of supplementary insurance”.