When and how will pending applications for main pensions be eliminated

By Dimitris Katsaganis

“Respite” for pensioners but also for the economy as a whole has been brought by the drastic reduction of pending main pension applications, as they emphasize in Capital.gr responsible officers of the Funds.

And this is because through the record payment of new pensions together and their retroactive ones especially in the last 2 years, the amount of 525 million euros has fallen into the real economy. In particular, e-EFKA’s overdue debts to pensioners fell from 693 million euros in May 2020 to just 168 million euros. That is, within 2 years, overdue debts were reduced by 75%. Regarding these remaining debts (168 million euros) they will be paid by the end of August. As the Minister of Labour, Mr. Kostis Hatzidakis, mentioned during last week’s Council of Ministers, the government has succeeded in more than doubling the rate of issuance of new pensions, achieving back-to-back historical records.

It is recalled that the government, based on the latest assessment report from Brussels, has made a new commitment to the Commission to eliminate the overdue deadlines (that is, those that count more than 3 months of waiting) for applications for main pensions (from a Fund or successive insurance) shortly over a month from today. It is noted, in fact, that the implementation of the aforementioned government commitment is a prerequisite for the end of the enhanced supervision of the country.

According to his information Capital.gr currently only 67,000 overdue pension applications are 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.

Parallel pensions

At the same time that e-EFKA presses the “gas” for the payment of all overdue applications for main pension (from a Fund or consecutive insurance), the front of pending applications for parallel insurance also “runs”.

According to valid information of “K” from competent officials of the insurance super-carrier, the software will be ready by the end of this month-beginning of the next month, which will be used to calculate the close to 55,000 pending parallel insurance pensions.

In this way, depending on the years of insurance and the income of each insured person, the already paid pensions coming from the first insurance fund will be increased.

The specific increases are pending since May 2016, so they will occur retroactively for the beneficiaries which even exceed 6 years.

According to the same sources, the payment of the increments together with the retrospective ones is expected to start even from next month, in July.

However, officials of the funds report to “K” that their increases and retrospectives will not be given only in order of priority, that is, starting with the applications of May 2016, June 2016, July 2016, etc.

What is being considered to happen is that the clearances of pending applications based on their “oldness” will run in parallel with the clearances of the most recent ones, specifically, those applications that will be submitted after the appropriate software has been installed from the end of the current year month.

The auxiliaries also take their turn

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 kept 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.