Tasos Petropoulos

The previous SYRIZA government did not only take care to issue huge "golden" pensions to certain categories of retirees.

It had also made sure to issue higher retirement bonuses than what was provided in SYRIZA's own insurance reform law of 2016 to certain categories of pensioners insured by TSMEDE, the engineers' insurance fund.

National Bank of Greece has until this Friday to pay 36 million euros to the single auxiliary social security fund (ETEAEP) that has undertaken the payment of supplementary pensions to 16,280 NBG retirees.

Pensioners remain in the dark about the recalculation of their pensions according to the 2016 law, as they have not yet been notified by the Labor and Social Security Ministry about their so-called personal difference - i.e. the part of their pension that is likely to be cut.

The Labor Ministry is seeking ways to accelerate the processing of pending retirement lump sum applications, as despite assurances that the number of outstanding cases is coming down, reality suggests that there may be more than 200,000 retirees still waiting.

The timing of Tuesday's disagreement between Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Deputy Labor Minister Tasos Petropoulos over whether the leftist government plans to pay a one-off benefit to public sector workers and pensioners in the form of an Easter bonus was not incidental.

When Deputy Labour Minister Tasos Petropoulos announced the prospect of handing out an Easter bonus to pensioners and civil servants (holiday bonuses were abolished by the bailout memorandums), Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos to hastened to nip the idea in the bud.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos on Tuesday denied claims by Deputy Labor Minister Tasos Petropoulos that the government was planning to pay a one-off benefit to civil servants and public sector pensioners in the form of an Easter bonus.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos denied claims by Deputy Labor Minister Tasos Petropoulos that the government was planning to pay a one-off benefit to civil servants and civil service pensioners in the form of an Easter bonus.

The government appears to be shelving its plans for the restructuring of debts to the tax authorities and social security funds, according to the European Commission's report on Wednesday, even though officials in Athens had consistently said over the last few weeks that the clauses related to those plans would be voted immediately and start applying within March.

The Labor Ministry will cover a quarter of the total increase in salary costs of corporations from the abolition of the subminimum salary for the under-25s.

The subsidy will concern 50 percent of the employers' social security contributions toward the main pension of each worker up to 25 years old who until recently received 510.95 euros per month.