Vindication for gov’t and EFKA
Council of State rules in favor of use of private professionals for clearing pension backlog
The legislative arrangements of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs for the utilization of specialized professionals, aimed at dealing with the problem of delays in the issue of thousands of main or auxiliary pensions, are within the constitutional and legal frameworks.
The Plenary Assembly of the Council of State ruled in favor of the constitutionality of the regulations in question, with a decision announced on Friday in the media, following appeals brought by workers’ unions.
The court ruled that the utilization of professionals, such as lawyers and accountants by the Single Social Security Entity (EFKA) for the issuance of pensions, does not conflict with the constitutional mandates or violate basic provisions of the current legislation. The rationale of the plenary decision comes as a response to all the objections raised by those who appealed, claiming the unconstitutionality of the arrangements for the use of special professionals in the issuance of pensions.
The verdict noted that “certified professionals (lawyers and accountants), who are listed in a register maintained and supervised by EFKA, after successfully completing a training seminar and, subsequently, successfully participating in exams on thematic modules, have the necessary qualifications and the appropriate specialization and expertise for the exercise of their above responsibilities, and they bear increased responsibility even after the completion of their work.”
Since March 2021 and after a series of measures taken, together with the utilization of private individuals who were trained and certified for this, EFKA managed to significantly reduce the number of pending main pensions. According to the ministry’s official figures, 570,000 pending main pensions were issued within 27 months. Now the issuance rate is 1,100 pensions per day, up from 500 in 2019. The average time to issue a new pension in Greece now stands at 60 days. All cases up to 2021 onward have been cleared, exception for some 4,000 that are managed by a special EFKA team.
