All minimum pensions go up

This Friday the Council of Ministers approved a series of measures aimed to be able to adjust pensions more close to the level of common welfare and with the intention to pull the lowest pensions over the core European poverty threshold.

The funds provided for the pensions of workers and the self-employed (without the IGO - which will also undergo a reassessment - to be counted) will increase from € 238.5 million for the period 2013-2014 and up to a level of € 497.2 million for the period 2015-2016.  So it's going to be almost half a billion € which will be dedicated to raising the pensions over the period 2015-2016.

So, up to more than twice the amount that was provided for pensions over the period 2013-2014 !

In this way, all minimum pensions will thus increase by 2%.  Moreover, the most long-established pensions will receive a special upgrade: the retirements that took off before 1995 will enjoy a revaluation of 1%, and pensions that were launched in 2010 and 2011 (pensions that began five years ago) will also have a 2% increase.

The vacation pay which currently is € 646.48 for a single person and € 808.10 for a family, will also be increased by 5.9%.  This measure affects  1.85 million pensioners.

Finally, the minimum pensions that exist for mixed careers will be increased, in order to also include this group of pensioners to access the minimum pension as provided for self-employed and employees, as to ensure an equality of the systems.  This measure affects 250.000 million pensioners.

These proposals, which are part of the fiscal framework within the so-called "prosperity envelope", which does not go down by 40%, as decided by the previous government, but - on the contrary - will substantially improve the quality of life specifically for just this group of pensioners who so far had been kind of side-tracked in our society, and this makes me very happy.