The Ministry of Labour is working on a new plan for restrictions and safeguards for the settlement of overdue debts to the Social Insurance Fund (SSF) to discharge from the debts of natural and legal persons, amounting to €211 million.
Based on data forwarded to the Parliament by the Minister of Labour Yiannis Panagiotou, following questions submitted by MPs in the context of the budget debate of the Ministry of Labour, the current contributions due to the Social Security Fund until the end of 2024 to the funds managed or responsible for collecting contributions by the YKA amounted to €210.9 million. This amount also includes cases that are before the courts.
As clarified in the letter, "the current contributions due concern a period of time that will not exceed six years in accordance with Article 13 of the Social Insurance Law of 2010". Debtors include the self-employed, employers and businesses. It is worth noting that some of the debtors participated in the two plans of the Social Insurance Services, but due to their non-compliance with the provisions of the regulations they were removed.
"No" to normalization
The Government does not agree with new regulations – facilitations for overdue debts to the Social Security Fund and the plan it is working on will include strict provisions. Many times the Minister of Labor Giannis Panagiotou had warned that such plans (repayment in instalments and with gratuitous provisions) create the risk of normalization and may negatively affect the timely payment of contributions to the Fund.
As he had stated a few weeks ago in Parliament, when the law proposals of DIKO, ELAM and DIPA were being discussed, which increase the number of instalments of the plans, expectations should not be created among debtors, who should pay their contributions without creating new debts.
The new provisions
The Government, after studying the parties' proposals, decided to promote a new plan in 2026, which, however, will be very different from the two previous repayment plans that were implemented.
According to information from "F", the number of equal monthly instalments will be much reduced from the 54 provided for in the previous plans. Various scenarios were put on the table for the number of instalments, including their reduction by 50%.
In addition, one of the main provisions of the new plan will be the limitation of discounts, i.e., the possibility that those who join the new arrangement will not benefit from a reduction in the additional fee and interest is being studied.
According to the two previous plans, employers and the self-employed could repay their arrears in 54 equal monthly instalments at the latest. Also, those who chose to pay earlier than 54 instalments benefited from a corresponding reduction in the additional fee, which amounts to up to 27%.
In the event that the amount due was paid in a lump sum, the debtor was exempt from paying the full amount of the additional fee imposed.
The important thing in the previous regulations was that for those debtors who were included in the repayment plans, the taking of judicial measures against them was frozen and the criminal prosecutions were suspended, after the approval of the Attorney General. The Ministry of Labour estimates that with the restrictions it is considering including in the third plan, there will be no exploitation, while this will put an end to delays.
All debtors, including those who were removed from the previous arrangements, due to their non-compliance, will have the right to join the scheme. Those who join the new plan will have to pay their current debts, while those who do not comply will be expelled from the new regulation.
The previous ones failed
The two plans, in 2016 and 2021, had failed, as 50% of the debtors were automatically removed after not complying with the arrangements to which they were committed. It is noted that an amount of around €95 million had been collected from the two plans, with an initial debt amount of €229.1 million. Based on the data of the Ministry of Labour, the total number of debtors who are still included in the last plan is 572 (352 legal entities and 220 natural persons). Their current balance is €8.6 million.
