The leftist Greek government will apparently avoid a retroactive deduction of a bonus allocated to low-income pensioners by debuting a so-called “social solidarity” subsidy after July 1, instead of dolling out the benefit with a date beginning on Jan. 1, 2016.
The money saved from this shift will, therefore, not be deducted from low-income pensioners. Nevertheless, the monthly stipend (EKAS) for low-income will be eliminated. Beneficiaries reached roughly 380,000 under the now eliminated EKAS regime.
At present the goal of reducing the EKAS benefit by 540 million euros until 2017 remains.
Additionally, the government will reportedly not proceed with a “freeze” on so-called “special wage scales” in the public sector, i.e. military officers, physicians, justices, university professors etc. What remains to be seen is the offset measure, which should reach 100 million euros.
On another front, the government will implement creditors’ demands for legal immunity of the board members of a privatization fund and allow state-guaranteed non-performing loans to be resold on the secondary market — which together are calculated at 1.5 billion euros.
