General Law on the pensions of expatriates from Albania and the former Soviet Union – What it provides

Published in the Official Gazette (B’ 4135/3.8.2022) the Joint Ministerial Decision of the Ministers of Labor and Social Affairs, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Citizen Protection and Interior regarding the new way of calculating the National Pension of expatriates coming from Albania and from countries of the former Soviet Union.

Specifically, the years of residence in the country required to receive a full national pension are reduced from 40 to 30, as expatriates from these two regions were not able to be and work in Greece before 1992, due to the particular political conditions that prevailed in the countries of their residence during that period.

With the above-mentioned KYA, the beneficiaries, the method of calculating the national pension and the necessary supporting documents, as well as the procedure according to which the new calculation will be made, are defined. For those who are already retired or will become retired within 2022, the full national pension will be paid if they have 30 years of residence in the country, while for each year that falls short of 30 it will be reduced by 1/30. Gradually, this limit is adjusted annually, so that after a decade, that is, from 2032 onwards, the conditions will be equalized for all beneficiaries of a national pension and 40 years of residence will now be required.

Proof of expatriate status is provided either by presenting a copy of a police identity card and a certificate of registration in the Civil Registry, if Greek citizenship has been acquired, or with a certified copy of the valid foreign passport and a copy of the valid Special Expatriate Identity Card (SID), if the beneficiary he is not a Greek citizen.

Accordingly, the proofs of residence in Greece are described, which indicatively include: a) Single Type Residence Permit (SPR) issued to EDTO holders, either in the form of a sticker on an old foreign passport, or in the form of an independent document with a duration of 10 years, or old national expatriate entry visa or residence permits of another type, b) copies of tax clearance notes relating to the years of legal residence in the country, c) certificate of the competent municipal authority for Permanent Residence, d) residential lease contracts, e) service bills public benefit character, f) moving certificate, g) health book, h) certificate from the Public Employment Service (former OAED) for the submission of supporting documents for the payment of a one-off expatriate or unemployment allowance. Also, since during the considered period an actual period of insurance has been created in Greece, this period is also considered a period of residence.

The recalculation of the national pension will be done retroactively from 1.1.2022 for those who were already retired on that date and from the date the pension began to be paid if they became retired at a later date. In addition, the KYA also covers those who receive a pension due to the death of a person who had expatriate status.

Finally, the KYA describes in detail the process of submitting an application for the recalculation of their national pension, which can be submitted at any time, electronically or by hand, based on the instructions issued by the e-EFKA. In summary, those who have already received a pension or have submitted a pending pension application should submit an application for the recalculation of their national pension, providing the necessary supporting documents, while those who will henceforth submit a pension application will declare their expatriate status with the application.

The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Kostis Hatzidakis, said: “For a number of years, the Greeks of North Epirus and Greeks who have come from the former Soviet Union have suffered an injustice regarding their pensions, due to a regulation of the Katrougalos law that made it practically impossible to receive a full national pension from our expatriates. We are removing this injustice in practice, following a personal commitment by the Prime Minister himself, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. We are determined to face these issues with a spirit of justice and common sense, always within the limits of the economy’s endurance “.

The Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Panos Tsakloglou said: “By signing the Joint Ministerial Decision on the national pensions of expatriates from Albania and the former Soviet Union, the government in a difficult economic situation corrected an injustice of many years. The conditions in which our expatriates lived until the beginning of the 1990s were such that they were not allowed to come and work in Greece, as any other citizen of a free country could, so the 40 years residence requirement to receive a full national pension was for them not just difficult, but objectively impossible. With the new provision, 30 instead of 40 years of residence will be required for the specific groups of expatriates to receive a full national pension, and this limit is adjusted annually so that within a decade it will be equal to the limit that applies to everyone. At the same time the national pension received by retired returning expatriates is also increasing, as the way of calculation”.