All increments and retroactive packages until the end of the year

By Dimitris Katsaganis

Barrage 6 retrospective and increases await all pensioners of the country until the end of the year.

First of all, by the end of August, the government has committed that the awarding of all overdue pending pension applications, i.e. for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, will be completed, in relation to pensioners with an insurance fund and successive insurance. Together they will be given retroactively, depending on the waiting time (from the month of submitting the pension application up to one month before the month of pension payment).

Immediately after, in the Autumn of this year, e-EFKA will step on the “gas” for the outstanding supplementary pensions, together with their retrospective ones.

Until the December of this year, with an announcement of the e-EFKA has announced how all pending applications for parallel insurance will have been settled and in the meantime their award will be “running” together with their retroactives.

Also, the December, will be given the increases to all pensioners, as of January 1, 2023 (i.e. the January 2023 pensions will be paid before the Christmas holidays) “unfreeze” the nominal adjustments to pensions based on GDP and inflation.

Moreover, in the same month (i.e. December 2022) the positive consequences of the abolition of the solidarity levy will be seen in the pockets of pensioners with an annual income of more than 12,000 euroswhich was announced by the Prime Minister himself, Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, last week.

End, those pensioners who applied to the courts until the end of July 2020 for the return of the cuts in supplementary pensions and gifts in the period between June 2015 – May 2016 (based on the memorandum legislation of 2011-12), as they were recently vindicated by the CoE will receive the retroactive their.

More detail:

1. Pending pensions from a fund and successive insurance

According to information from Capital.gr, there are currently only 67,000 overdue pension applications pending, while an additional 30,000-35,000 new definitive pensions will be granted by the end of this month.

In total, for the whole year, 300,000 new main pensions are expected to be granted, which will be a historical record for the Funds. Already in the first five months of 2022, almost as many pensions have been issued as in the whole of 2019. It is noted that 225,000 new pensions were issued in 2021, 163,000 were paid in 2020 and 123,000 were issued in 2019.

There are now no pending applications for the period 2016-2018.

Just 1.5% of outstanding applications for 2019 are left and this will be paid out within the current month. There are also 9% of 2020 applications and 22% of pending 2021 pensions left.

These applications will be paid within the July-August period. In total, according to information from Capital.gr, in June-July 100 million euros will be given in retrospective and an additional 68 million euros in August.

2. Pending supplementary pensions

As soon as the front of the pending main pension applications (of a fund, consecutive and parallel insurance) is decisively closed, e-EFKA will emphasize the drastic reduction of the pending supplementary insurance as well. First of all, only the elimination of the 90,000 outstanding main pensions gives impetus to the issuance of supplementary pensions, as an inflexible condition for the issuance of a pensioner’s supplementary pension is the issuance of his main pension.

Further, however, the e-EFKA will “run” a fast track process (i.e. as with the main pensions) from next autumn.

According to this, for applications that have been submitted until March 31, 2022, an approving pension decision can be issued immediately based on the insured’s electronic insurance history. For applications submitted after April 1, 2022 if no decision has been issued within three months of the submission of the application, after the end of the quarter the rapporteurs stop all correspondence to verify the information submitted by the applicant and the pension award act or the a rejection decision is issued based on the details of the applicant’s electronic insurance history (“ATLAS” system or other electronic systems maintained at EFKA).

Also, 200 lecturers are about to be transferred from issuing main pensions to issuing supplementary pensions. Thus, around 300 rapporteurs will deal with the issuance of supplementary pensions (compared to 100 employed today) and around 300 rapporteurs will deal with the main pensions (compared to 500 currently employed).

Finally, the employment of certified accountants and lawyers, who are employed with the issuance of main pensions and the issuance of auxiliary pensions, is foreseen.

At the same time, it is recalled that all applications for supplementary pensions can be made digitally, i.e. through the electronic services of e-EFKA.

3. Pending main parallel insurance pensions

The process of issuing parallel insurance pensions is “running” at a rapid pace after the operation of the appropriate software in the e-EFKA services at the end of last month.

According to the latest information of Capital.gr from the relevant executives of the funds, this process will proceed with 3 “speeds”.

At the first speed, the applications for parallel or even successive insurance of those insured persons who had not received any pension (as opposed to other pensioners with a parallel pension who have received the first pension from their basic fund) will be processed until the end of June .These pensioners will be paid their pensions, together with their retrospectives at the end of the current month.

With the second speed, they will “run” which are deposited from July 1, 2022 onwards. As announced by e-EFKA itself, with this new software, the new successive and parallel insurance pensions issued from now on and This means that those applying for a parallel or consecutive pension after 1 July will not have to wait for their turn to be cleared, after all previous claims have been cleared first, starting with those filed after 13 May 2016. Instead, priority will be given to they.

With the third speed, they will “run”, within the current month, as the same e-EFKA announcement provides, and the oldest applications, i.e. those submitted between May 13, 2016- June 30, 2022. Those who have applied for parallel insurance pensions for the above period have received the first pension from the basic insurance fund during the previous period.

According to the e-EFKA, the performance of the corresponding increases (i.e. increases to the already paid pensions from their first basic fund and retroactive to the beneficiaries) will be completed within 5 months, i.e. by the end of December 2022.

4. Abolition of solidarity levy

The solidarity levy was established by article 29 of Law 3986/2011 on incomes over 12,000 euros of natural persons and which should have been abolished at the end of 2014, as it was established as an extraordinary memorandum measure. The abolition of the solidarity levy means that around 500,000 public sector employees and pensioners with incomes above 12,000 euros will see an increase in their wages starting at 22 euros and even exceeding 676 euros a year for certain categories of civil servants.

5. Unfreezing increases

In relation to pensioners, the existing institutional framework provides for the “unfreezing” of nominal increases in pensions.

That is, they will be led to an increase. The increase will be determined 50% by the GDP growth rate and 50% by the consumer price index growth rate of the previous year.

If the latest forecasts of the OECD are verified, which have come after those of the IMF and more recently of the Commission (June 2023) for Greece, which predict a GDP increase of 2.8% and inflation of 8.8%, then there is an increase of 5.8% in the main pensions from 1 January 2023.

In practice, pensioners will see this increase before Christmas this year, as traditionally January pensions are paid before the holidays.

This increase will be real (that is, it will be felt in their “pockets”) for “new” pensioners, that is, for those who retired after May 13, 2016.

Accounting, however, will be for “old” pensioners, i.e. for those who retired before May 13, 2016, as the negative personal difference will be reduced by the percentage of the increase.

After this difference is amortized in the following years (the time of full amortization varies according to each pensioner), the “old” pensioners will also see a real increase in their earnings.

6. Retrospective SCs

Retroactive payments will gradually begin to be made to those pensioners who have been vindicated by the SC while the central political decisions on possible other solutions are pending.

The reason for those who went to court by July 2020 claiming the return of cuts to their supplementary pensions and gifts for the period between June 2015 – May 2016 (based on the 2011-12 memorandum legislation).

These pensioners were vindicated by the SC, based on the decision of its plenary session.

However, this vindication does not mean “automatic” payment of retroactive payments by the public to all those who have appealed to justice, they note in Capital.gr.

Such a thing would require a central political decision by the government, which, for the time being, has not been taken.

This, however, the same sources emphasize, does not mean that the public will remain inactive towards the pensioners who were vindicated by the Supreme Court until any government decisions are taken at the central level.

The key to mobilizing the public, i.e. the payment of retroactive benefits to this category of pensioners, will be the decisions of the courts that examine their appeals.

This means that their positive decision will lead to the payment of retroactive payments to those entitled to e-EFKA.

The same sources estimate, speaking to Capital.gr, that the decision positive for the pensioners by the SC could speed up the adjudication of their appeals in the local courts, thus speeding up the payment of their retroactive benefits by the e-EFKA.

In this case, the payment of retroactive payments would take the form of a barrage of monthly payments of retroactive payments to those who are periodically vindicated by the local courts. Thus, the state budget could more easily “lift” the fiscal burden of returning the cuts to this category of pensioners.

Alternatively, on the government’s table is to give, with a central political decision, the retroactive “one and out” to all those who appealed to the Supreme Court, as the positive decision of the supreme court for them will lead to a positive decision of the local courts as well.

Besides, the payment of retroactive benefits to all pensioners should not be excluded, whether they went to court or not (either in one go, or in 2 installments, e.g. first the retroactive benefits of the supplementary benefits and then the gifts or vice versa), but also the offsetting of the retrospectives of all pensioners with the negative personal difference or even the upcoming horizontal increases from January 1, 2023 https://www.capital.gr/oikonomia/3644460/ola-ta-senaria-gia-ta-anadromika-ton-suntaxiouxon-meta-to-ste.