Auxiliary pensions will be automatically due to workers who have completed at least 15 years of work, whether that is with a single social security fund or more, through a provision to be included in a Labor and Social Security Ministry bill, Deputy Minister Panos Tsakloglou revealed on Friday.
He explained that the rule which applies to workers insured at the former IKA fund will be extended to all workers, including civil servants, thereby helping clear the backlog of pending pension applications.
“At the moment the overdue supplementary pensions number about 40,000. With a provision that will soon come to Parliament, the IKA rule will be applied to all insured persons, setting as a condition the completion of 15 years of supplementary social security contributions either to an institution or with consecutive insurance, which currently only applies to the former IKA-ETAM, and not with the conditions stipulated by each former fund,” Tsakloglou told state broadcaster ERT.
The provision of the bill is expected to help – from its commencement date onward – to drastically reduce the time it takes to award supplementary pensions. This is because it will allow those insured to receive an auxiliary pension with a fast-track procedure, setting a threshold of 15 years with one or more funds. In practice, it is estimated that with the activation of the provision, almost the entire stock of outstanding auxiliary state pensions (approximately 13,000-14,000), will be cleared within 30 days.
The entire stock of outstanding auxiliary pensions remains at high levels and exceeds 100,000. According to estimates by the Single Social Security Fund (EFKA), overdue supplementary pensions, with a waiting time of more than 90 days, which could but have not been issued, exceed 44,500. Of these, approximately 14,000 concern state supplementary pensions.
Nowadays civil servants need to complete at least 25 or even 35 years of service to qualify for an auxiliary pension.
