Greece's three major state-run pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension funds covering around 800,000 employees including transport workers, shopkeepers and the self employed have been unified into a single retirement system. And the 40 pension schemes covering the country's lawyers are also to be homogenised as part of a government initiative to simplify Greece's social security pillar.
Spouses of employees covered by pension rights are also now eligible to claim a percentage of their partner's pension in the event of death under the new regulation.
Although the new PAYG system will not change fundamentally in structure, it will mirror the previous scheme of Greece's self em-ployed in terms of contributions and regulation.
Panos Zampelis, managing di-rector of Athens based Piraeus Fi-nance, says: This is a further step towards streamlining the Greek social security system for future EMU membership.
However, the real question on everybody's lips in Greece for retirement is when the government will bring in legisation on private pension funds, which should havebeen implemented last year. The belief now is that this may not happen until next year's parliamentary elections.""