Tag Archives: pensions

Greece’s Court of Audit has ruled to reinstate the pensions of retired judges to the levels before 2012 that it before the cuts imposed by the first bailout. The decision triggered an outrage in the society as some media reported that judges could receive at least 35,000 euros each in …

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Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Wednesday that the so-called “solidarity levy,” an extra surcharge tax on incomes, will be abolished from January 2023 and that pensions frozen since 2010 will be allowed to increase again. “It is a double resounding signal that the country’s growth must benefit everyone without …

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The Greek government has dismissed a media report saying that it was planning to sell billions of euros of social security contributions owed to its pension fund to private investors. Citing senior government officials, international news agency Reuters reported late on Thursday that “the first batch of up to 12 …

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The Council of State has ruled that basic provisions of the 2016 social security legislation – Katrougalos Law – were against the Constitution. The CoS ruling refers to provisions of main and supplementary pensions as well as social security contributions of self-employed. The Council of State has ruled as “unconstitutional” …

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Head of IMF’s Europe department “Poul Thomsen suffers from short-time memory loss,” said Syriza MP and former finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos. He was commenting on Thomsen’s claims that the Greek government agreed to high primary surpluses targets during the negotiations in the first half of 2015. Greeks accepted the high …

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European creditors are furious at the Greek government plan to restore Christmas and Easter bonuses for thousands of civil servants and raise private and public sector pensions by 20%-25%. This will be the second time Greece proceeds to a unilateral action within a week ignoring lenders’ terms and conditions Over …

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Neo-liberal policies will be implemented in the social security and pensions sector, should New Democracy come to power. ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Bank of Greece governor, Yannis Stournaras, fully agree on that. New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis pledged to abolish the so-called Katrougalos law that cut pensions once …

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One third of Greek pensioners receives a monthly pension of no more than 500 euros. According to data from the Helios database of the Greek Labor Ministry for August and September 2018, the average monthly pension was 724.18 euros. Supplementary pension was 172.32 euros per month, while dividend paid monthly …

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Former Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem wrote a blog post about the pensions system in general and the one in Greece in particular. He supports the Greek government position that  the controversial pension cuts “are unnecessary.” However, at the same time he claims that “the statutory retirement age in Greece will …

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A  first-instance court in Thessaloniki ruled that austerity cuts scrapping the 13th and 14th pensions were illegal and ordered the pension funds involved to return the money. The court ruled that  70-year-old IKA pensioner Odysseas Tsologiannis has to await for a total amount of 11,184 euros. The pensioner had filed …

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Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos ‘promised’ investors that Greek pensioners will be dead soon and that they will not have to worry about the sustainability of the pensions system. Addressing the 13th Greek Annual Road Show in London, Tsakalotos argued that pensioners who are over 70 years old now, will have …

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The International Monetary Fund insists on further pension cuts in Greece citing not fiscal necessities  but claiming the country must send a clear message to investors and the markets. During a briefing  on Thursday, IMF spokesman Jerry Rice said the measure was voted and adopted in 2017 and it is …

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Greece submitted a draft bill to parliament late on Friday, a bill fully packed with austerity measures worth 5.1 billion euros and counter-measures worth 1.5 billion, in an effort to sweeten the bitter pill to thousands of pensioners and employees. The bill outlines reforms in the energy, pension and labor …

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European Commission technocrats must have been in a trolling mood when they wrote the Pensions Adequacy Report 2018. They raise concern about the cuts in pensions and low-pensioners benefits they demanded from Greece to implement in the context of the 3. bailout as “all these provisions are expected to have …

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Hundreds of pensioners marched in downtown Athens in one more protest against cuts in main and supplementary pensions during the austerity years. The protest was staged as the recalculation of pensions is imminent due to the so-called Katrougalos-Law of 2016. The pensioners from the private and public sector said that …

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Those who have worked in Greece and have paid social security contributions for pension, can now check with the new electronic platform of Greece’s e-government how many pension stamps they have collected. The ATLAS application give this possibility to those insured at IKA (employees and part of self-employed), OAEE (self-employed), …

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Greek society in economic decline: Three out of four are long-time unemployed. 51% of the households depends on pensions. One in five households is afraid to lose its home. 70% of the young Greeks want to look for a work abroad. 16.3%  say they cannot afford to cover an extraordinary …

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Pensions in Greece were too high and had to be regulated, Managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said at the world Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. To cut pensions was a “difficult political dilemma”  she added. “In case of Greece, pensions were significantly higher than in …

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Despite the ongoing economic crisis, some Greeks seem to live on another planet. It is mainly the country’s politicians and certain groups of  the public administration who still think that the state is a cow they can milk even if they know that more than one million people are without …

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“There are no people seeking food in the garbage bins as in 2014,” Culture Minister Elena Kountoura said adding that citizens congratulate the government for its social policies. People are congratulating the government because “in 2014 there were people struggling to have a meal on their table. It is a …

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