The main intervention of the new bill of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security concerns the reform of the institutional framework of occupational insurance, states the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security, Panos Tsakloglouin an interview he gave to the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency.

As he points out, with regard to the new regulatory framework for the operation of Occupational Insurance Funds, the bill provides for the facilitation of the creation of multi-employer funds, something particularly important in a country where employment in small businesses dominates, good governance practices are introduced, the effectiveness of the supervision of professional funds and the tax treatment of their benefits is streamlined.

At the same time, Mr. Tsakloglou notes that in the bill there are also several articles related to the rationalization and unification of rules of insurance legislation.

According to the Deputy Minister of Labour, the bill includes provisions to encourage the employment of pensioners, by abolishing the 30% cut of the pension and establishing, instead, a non-remunerative resource in favor of e-EFKA, calculated on the income of the insurance company work, which favors the vast majority of working pensioners, the second for this year extraordinary support for pensioners with a personal difference, the possibility, for the first time, of the retirement of self-employed persons with overdue debts of insurance contributions to the e-EFKA up to 30,000 euros from 20,000 euros, which applies today, the unification of the conditions for establishing an auxiliary pension, the extension of the maternity allowance of the Public Employment Service (DYPA) for 9 months to self-employed (self-employed and farmers) mothers, completing the unification of rules, which had begun with the equalization of time payment of the maternity allowance to employed mothers in the private and public sector and the establishment of a prepaid card for the payment of the majority of DYPA and the Organization of Welfare Allowances and Social Solidarity (OPEKA) benefits.

Referring to yet another reform of the Ministry of Labour, which is the Auxiliary Capitalization Insurance Fund (TEKA), Mr. Tsakloglou underlines that the process of registering more and more insured persons is ongoing at a systematic pace and, in the near future, more young people are expected to join voluntarily.

Among other things, the Deputy Minister of Labor comments that enormous steps have been taken in EFKA and estimates that even more progress will be made in the next 3-4 years with the completion of two very large projects: the first concerns the new integrated information system of e-EFKA and the second the digitization of the institution’s archival material. “As a result, we expect the faster issuance of pension decisions and better service to citizens,” he adds.

Asked about the increase pensioners will see in their pensions in 2024, Mr. Tsakloglou estimates that, based on the data so far, the increase is expected to be around 3% and will be credited to pensioners’ accounts next January , i.e. when the pensions of February 2024 are paid. In addition, the fifth annual installment of the increases of the Vroutsis law is paid to approximately 220 thousand pensioners, with more than 30 years of insurance life.

In fact, he adds that the government, for the second time this year, will pay an extraordinary one-off aid of up to 200 euros to pensioners who will not benefit from the upcoming increases in pensions from 1/1/2024, due to a positive personal difference. About 743,000 pensioners will benefit from this aid, provided they have a personal difference of more than 10 euros and receive a monthly pension of up to 1,600 euros.

Finally, regarding the decision of the Court of Auditors on the question of restoring judicial pensions to pre-2012 levels, the Deputy Minister of Labor clarifies that the decision on retroactive benefits only concerns those who have appealed and only to them will the corresponding amounts be paid .

“The government must respect the judiciary and its decisions, but it must also respect the country’s fiscal limitations and the given fiscal margin, which we have and this margin is finite. After all, it is known that our insurance system is particularly deficient and our effort to limit these deficits is of capital importance.

For this reason, there will be a relevant legislative initiative in the spirit of the court decision, but also provisions for the protection of the insurance system from new large deficits, the victims of which would ultimately be the taxpayers and the rest of the pensioners”, emphasizes Mr. Tsakloglou.