Pensions: Mitsotakis’ political fraud with personal differential allowance

The government announces the small amounts it will provide and prepares five discounts in different categories of insured persons.

Once again in the same project, the viewers, with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, are trying to appease the pensioners whom he crushes with legislative interventions and gilding the grain with crumbs in the range of 150-200 euros, which he calls the personal differential allowance. So, at the same time that the NDP deputies complain that his government works for the benefit of the few at the expense of the majority, he wants to present himself as a socially sensitive person who taxes the country’s refineries in order to increase the personal differential allowance in December. . And let’s not forget that the micro-insurance is expected in July, which will bring “fire and blade” with five reductions in different categories of insured, while preparations are already underway to reduce the hypothetical years by two years (from seven to five). And with the new calculation method from 2025 (wage increase instead of inflation), pensioners will in the future receive smaller pensions.

To all this we must add the government’s refusal to abolish the special solidarity contribution, which deprives another 440,000 pensioners of increases. And let us not forget that the exorbitant profiteering that has brought 70% of Greek households to their knees, as well as the taxation policy, is undermining the quality of life of 2.4 million pensioners who have to live on an average pension of 876 euros.

Socially Sensitive “Fireworks”

This is not the first time that Mr. Mitsotakis has presented… beads and mirrors in the form of suits in order to present, with the help of the established media, a socially sensitive self. Until now, aided by the conditions of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which brought financial relief from European institutions, he has borrowed generously and ruled with interest. Now things are tight. Thus, after the European elections, he arrogantly announced his intention to tax the obscene profits of the country’s refineries at a rate of 33%, and to allocate this revenue in the form of a personal difference bonus for pensioners who will not receive the horizontal increase for 2025.

According to the Finance Ministry’s figures, the exorbitant profits imposed on the country’s refineries will bring €300 million to the state coffers, of which €250 million will be allocated in the form of a subsidy and the other €50 million will go to the government’s public investment programme. According to the calculations of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, there are about 700,000 pensioners with a personal difference of more than €10. This means that these pensioners will receive an average benefit of €357. However, the criteria have not yet been clarified and are expected to be announced by Mr Mitsotakis himself during his speech at the Thessaloniki International Fair in September.

According to the information, the aim is for the “high floors” of pensions to also receive some amount as a subsidy, i.e. those who receive a pension of more than 1,600 euros (excluded in previous years). Thus, the personal difference allowance will amount, according to the information, from 150 euros (high salaries more than 1,600 euros) to 400 euros (low salaries less than 700 euros).

From now on, this allowance is expected to become a “firework of social sensitivity” for Mr. Mitsotakis from the established media. But in practice, pension cuts come in different ways, so that the ratio of pension expenditures to GDP is constantly decreasing. According to data recently submitted to the Court of Auditors by the National Actuarial Authority and the Ministry of Labor, pension expenditures are expected to continue to decrease (as a percentage of GDP) until 2070 according to current data.

Direct discounts with microinsurance

Although it has been ready for a long time, and despite intense pressure from the Commission, the Mitsotakis government waited until the European elections first to institutionalize the four cuts in benefits and pensions that come in mid-summer. In more detail, it is planned to create:

• Reducing death pensions (widows) to 35% of the direct insured’s initial pension if the beneficiary is working or receiving his own pension. • Abolishing the second national pension in widows’ pensions if the beneficiary receives a pension in his own right. • Recovering overdue amounts paid ranging from 15,000 to 40,000 euros from approximately 100,000 private sector beneficiaries who received a widow’s pension after the three-year period without reduction as of 2016 (the Katrojalo Law which was not repealed by the Vrutsi Law of 2020). According to information, the additional amount will be withheld until it is paid from the pension paid, which means that the beneficiary, in conditions of inflation of greed, will have to live on the minimum that will be granted to him in order to “write off” the pension. Debt.

• Scissors in benefits in kind for hundreds of thousands of insured persons – retirees who retired from DEKO, banks, public sector, small and medium-sized enterprises, since the new law on unified benefits was put in place which equalizes the regressive benefits such as illness, pregnancy, work accidents, funerals, etc.

Fictitious years for owners and holders

Another cut concerns the fictitious years. The government plans to reduce the virtual years that can be replaced from seven to five years for the private sector and from twelve to five years for the public sector. Also on the table for reductions in the notional years are the following, before the final decision to reduce some or even all of the twelve notional years: military service, paternity leave, child time, sickness benefit, unemployment DYPA, educational leave (general), study time, pregnancy and childbirth time, strike days, vocational training time, time before registration in the OAEE – ETAA, unemployment periods. It is also planned to prohibit the retroactive recognition of the notional time for securing the right to a pension with the conditions of the insurance time and the age limit that were in effect until 2012.

All this is done for one purpose. Indirectly increasing the retirement age limits and minimizing early retirements, with a parallel indirect reduction in pensionable salary. It becomes clear that when you cannot buy two additional years, you will stay in the job longer and will not be able to receive a pension. And since the years of consideration contribute to the calculation of pensionable salary, the possibility of eliminating the possibility will also lead to a reduction in pensions paid.

But all this will be hidden under a rug called the extension of the possibility for all insured persons to buy back their years of pension up to five years (by eliminating categories). This means that high earners in the labor market will be able to buy back their years and retire faster!

Read also: 50% discount on widows’ pensions – a discount for about 60 thousand beneficiaries

To the Attorney General: 7 Sunni Endowment Executives on Charges of Leaking Audios from Tempe

UK: Election highlights – Labour’s comeback, Farage and Scotland

The day after Britain after the Conservatives and… New Labour

Britain: ‘Change starts now’ – Keir Starmer is new PM after landslide election win

Privatising NHS doctors with Adonis bull – puts a tombstone on the public nature of the health system

Who is Keir Starmer: The lawyer who swept the British elections?