ATHENS – A 7.75% increase will begin to be paid out with February pensions, Labor & Social Affairs Minister Kostis Chatzidakis told SKAI TV on Saturday.

The minister clarified that pensioners who are included in the so-called ‘personal difference’ category will get an increase too.

A legislative pension reform in 2016 axed pensions issued after its ratification, but did not affect pensions issued before that year. The sum difference between pensions issued before and after 2016 was termed ‘personal difference. A fresh pensioner with the same number of registered years in service and social insurance contributions will get a pension approximately 35% lower than an existing pensioner for whom the ‘personal difference’ has been maintained. This was practically put into effect to also prevent a drastic cut in long-time pensioners’ payments or civil servants who had high salaries, and to moderate the sharp drop in public sector salaries and pensions overall.

Of the 910,000 pensioners who fall into the ‘personal difference’ category, 515,000 will benefit from the abolition of the extraordinary solidarity levy -which has already been in effect since the beginning of the year- while another 260,000 will also benefit as recipients of the 250-euro emergency cash aid.

He clarified that an 83% of those included in the ‘personal difference’ category will see an increase, and only 17% will not.