Pension

Eight in 10 cases that are pending at Greece's administrative appeals courts concern disputes about pensions.

Apart from the measures that need to be taken in order to speed up the wheels of the justice system, it would help if insurance funds also did more to ensure that there were fewer delays in the process of settling such disputes.

Hundreds of thousands of pensioner cases which since 2015 have included claims for retroactive amounts for cuts deemed illegal by the Council of State, but also others, concerning the return of interest as the refunds of the main pensions became interest-free, or the recalculation of pensions, are piled up in administrative courts around the country.

BELGRADE - Serbian Finance Minister Sinisa Mali said on Monday the national economy was continuing to grow and that the plan was to keep it growing in 2024 as well.

Presenting the 2024 budget bill in the Serbian parliament, Mali said the bill ensured an improvement of the standard of living, with pensions and public sector wages set to be increased from January 1.

BELGRADE - Serbian Finance Minister Sinisa Mali said on Monday the country's supplementary budget for 2023 was positive and development-minded and noted that there was a 60.6 bln dinar surplus in the state coffers that would be used to help those in need of financial assistance.

Minister Sinia Mali has announced on his Instagram profile plans for salary and pension growth, as well as one-time assistance for mothers of children up to 16 years old.

Changes entailing increased costs for employers when posting employees abroad remain a cause of tensions in Slovenia. The Finance Ministry has still not delivered on the promise to come up with solutions to mitigate the impact of the legislation, which kicks in in 2024. Criticism has also come from diplomatic circles, where salaries will be impacted too.

The way for the retirement of more than 150,000 EFKA debtors is opened by a draft law of the Ministry of Labor, increasing the debt limit to 30,000 euros.

At the same time, it foresees the abolition of the 30% "penalty" in the pensions of those who work and its replacement with a special contribution, for incomes over €5,000.

The Bulgarian Parliament finally approved the 2023 Budget in a meeting that started at 9 a.m. yesterday and lasted almost 21 hours.

The financial framework is calculated at a deficit of three percent - on an accrual basis, with the preservation of a large part of the originally proposed capital program.

The National Economy and Finance Ministry's bill which includes a variety of the government's economic policy staples was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, said Minister Kostis Hatzidakis.

Titled "Boosting the Income of Wage Earners, Youth, Family, and Labor - Pension Regulations," it "fulfills 50% of the government's economic program commitments," he noted.

Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has said that the 25 percent increase in pensions has not been seen as satisfying and called on the government to make a further rise.