By S. Papapetros
[email protected]
A forecast by Greece's labor and social insurances ministry that the new social security umbrella organization (EFKA) will post a 1.1-billion-euro surplus in 2018 is expected to provide the Tsipras government with a potent argument in its efforts to persuade creditors to acquiescence to a suspension of scheduled pension cuts in January 2019.
Figures supplied by the ministry, and presented by "N", show the surplus up until August 2018 at 865.37 million euros, or 811.42 million euros after remittances to other state providers are deducted.
Avoiding the already legislated austerity measure conceivably means a "hole" of 2.065 billion euros in the 2019 budget, something that the poll-trailing Greek coalition government proposes to "cover", in part, with EFKA's surplus. Another 395 million euros will be added from a contributions fee collected for "solidarity between generations", as it's called.
The remain gap will be covered by not implementing 1.7 billion euros worth of countervailing measures, part of a package of mostly welfare spending that the Tsipras government negotiated with creditors in 2017 when it was essentially forced to pass the scheduled pension cuts. Implementing the countervailing measures is linked with achieving annual primary budget surplus targets, above 3.5 percent for 2018 and 2019.
Social security contributions collected by EFKA for the Jan-Aug 2018 period from the private sector are up by 8.11 percent, compared with the same period in 2017.
Total revenues up until the last day of August 2018 reached 25.899 billion euros, whereas spending was 25.034 billion euros.
