A new six-month cycle of retroactive payments for 345,000 pensioners begins in June, following the completion and integration of all functions of the Integrated Information System (IIS) of EFKA.
The payments, which will be made gradually each month within the six-month period, concern 30,000 cases with errors in recalculation, 45,000 refunds to widows and military personnel, 200,000 old pensioners with parallel insurance, 30,000 pensioners who work with recalculation of additional insurance time, and 40,000 new pensioners with parallel insurance.
Specifically, according to data collected to date, 18,000 beneficiaries have already received retroactive payments, while disbursements are expected to continue in the coming period, as thousands of cases remain open requiring data re-examination and calculation corrections.
Which pensioners are entitled to retroactive payments
1. Pensioners with recalculation errors. In many cases, incorrect data had been used for insurance time or pensionable earnings, resulting in beneficiaries receiving lower pensions than they were actually entitled to. The retroactive payments cover the period from January 1, 2019 until the month when the pension correction was completed, using the new calculation coefficients of the Vroutsis law.
2. Parallel insurance. Retroactive payments began in March and continue for pensioners who paid contributions to two different insurance funds until 2016 and retired after May 2016. In many of these cases, during the initial pension award, the increase corresponding to the second Fund was not properly incorporated. The result was that beneficiaries received smaller pensions, despite having paid additional contributions for years. After new recalculations, both retroactive amounts and increases in monthly pension emerge. In some cases, the monthly increase reaches up to 400 euros, depending on the years of parallel insurance and the amount of contributions paid.
3. Refunds to retired military personnel and military widows. These involve 45,000 cases of retired military personnel and widows of retired military personnel who receive dividends from the Stock Funds of the Armed Forces. These specific retroactive payments are linked to refunds of withholdings imposed under law 4093/2012. This specific withholding was calculated on the sum of main pension and dividend, leading to increased deductions for many beneficiaries. After the reduction of the withholding from 2023, refunds of amounts for the previous period emerged. Already 3,120 cases have been paid and retroactive payments reach up to 4,400 euros for a period of approximately 27 months.
4. Calculation of second insurance for 200,000 old insured persons. The issue is expected to be resolved by extending the current regulation for parallel insurance to those who retired before May 13, 2016, before the implementation of the Katrougkalos law. The pension increase for those with parallel insurance was established by law 4387/2016, however it was applied exclusively to those who retired after its entry into force. This resulted in creating a clear differentiation between “old” and “new” pensioners, although both categories had paid contributions to more than one Fund. In the pre-2016 regime, utilizing parallel insurance time was limited and linked to conditions, with the result that only those who had completed at least 16 years of parallel insurance could claim a second pension, and this under the condition that they would reach their 67th year of age. For those who did not complete this limit, the additional contributions essentially were not converted into retirement benefits. In contrast, for pensioners after 2016, a clearly more favorable framework applies. Parallel insurance time is taken into account regardless of duration, while the increase is calculated with a specific coefficient linked to contributions paid and pensionable earnings. In these cases, the amount of increase can be particularly significant, depending on the duration of parallel insurance and the level of contributions. In cases where parallel time approaches 15 years and earnings were high, the increase can reach even 300 to 360 euros monthly.
5. Retroactive payments to working pensioners. These involve 30,000 cases who continue to work alongside their pension. For each year of employment, pensioners have a pension increase calculated with a replacement coefficient of 0.77% on work salary. In these cases, retroactive payments correspond to 15-85 euros per month for 5 years, depending on salary amount and withholdings. It should be noted that the regime for working pensioners has changed from January 1, 2024 and remains the same today. Specifically, the old horizontal pension cut has been replaced by a special resource in favor of e-EFKA, which is imposed on the pensioner’s work or activity. For employed working pensioners, the basic withholding is 10% on insurable earnings. This resource burdens exclusively the pensioner himself, is withheld by the employer and paid to e-EFKA along with other contributions. At the same time, normal insurance contributions corresponding to employment continue to be paid. For pension recalculation, the Ministry of Labor is preparing a regulation so that pension recalculation occurs automatically every five years, regardless of whether the pensioner stopped working, in order to achieve faster return of contributions and decongestion of e-EFKA services.
Published in Sunday Afternoon
