About one million pensioners of the unified supplementary pension fund (ETEA) will see their pensions cut by 10% in the new year, according to the federation of social policy employees (POPOKP). The POPOKP President Thanasis Kapotas told Ta Nea that the new cuts, on top of the 5.2% cut implemented in January 2014, will be about 10%.
The situation is rather dire, with the pension fund noting that its revenue in the first nine months of 2014 was about 1.5 billion euros and its outgoing payments were 2.15 billion euros. ETEA’s deficit was about 305 million euros so far and is expected to be about 350 million euros in 2015.
The Minister of Labor Yannis Vroutsis spoke to Mega Channel and did not rule out the possibility of a new cut, arguing that as part of the internal redistribution of the fund’s finances, pensions “may go up or may go down”. Mr. Vroutsis was quick to add that any changes would be determined by the fund’s board of directors.
