Better use of social insurance funds' assets proposed

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March 1998 saw a meeting between the relevant parties to discuss how best to use the assets of Greece's social insurance funds.

On 19 March 1998, the Panhellenic Federation of Social Policy Organisation Staff (POPOKP), organised a meeting attended by the Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Insurance and representatives of the social partners to discuss the "profitable use of the movable and immovable property of social insurance funds".

During the meeting, the Federation asked that a new institutional framework be set up to make better use of the reserves and immovable property of the social insurance funds. According to the conclusions of the meeting, better utilisation of their movable property (about GDR 3,500 billion in bonds, stocks and interest-bearing notes) and immovable property (GDR 240 billion based on 1997 market value) will bring the insurance funds annual profits of at least GDR 150 billion. POPOKP also estimates that the total movable and immovable property of insurance funds supervised by the Ministry of Labour currently amounts to GDR 3,500 billion, but could exceed GDR 15,000 billion if the loss of GDR 5,000 billion from poor exploitation of reserves and the loss of GDR 7,000 billion from non-implementation of tripartite financing are taken into account. According to the POPOKP, the sum of GDR 15,000 billion could help the insurance funds weather short-lived crises, and also finance the transition to a new, more effective insurance system.

On the basis of these conditions, POPOKP has stated the following: "With regard to all the talk about the possibility of raising retirement ages and contributions for the purpose of reducing the social insurance deficit by GDR 10 billion, POPOKP's position is clear. This argument can only be used as a pretext, when correct interventions on matters of contribution evasions, profitable use of resources and control of spending can result in multiple benefits for funds and for social insurance finances as a whole." POPOKP asked that better use of insurance funds' resources be made a priority issue in legislative intervention on the "small insurance package", which is also among the most important issues in the current social dialogue on the social insurance question. In one of his interventions, the Deputy Minister of Social Insurance said that the Government is not orienting itself toward changing retirement ages, but that before summer 1998 there will be a regulation on contribution evasion.