CoS upholds clauses related to pension cuts

A plenary session of the Council of State, Greece’s highest administrative court, has provisionally ruled (by a marginal majority) that the pension cuts scheduled for next year abide by the country’s legislation and Constitution. The planned reductions from January 2019 will in some cases reach up to 18 percent.

Sources say that the CoS plenary decided by 13 votes to 12 that certain significant technical aspects of the law introduced two years ago by former labor and social security minister Giorgos Katrougalos were legal and constitutional.

The judges will continue to meet over matters related to the legislation, known as the Katrougalos Law, in order to decide whether all clauses concerning the pension cuts and other aspects adhere to the Constitution.

Kathimerini understands that the CoS plenary examined – and will revisit – issues such as the recalculation of pensions and the slashing of the so-called personal difference (i.e. the difference between pensions issued before and after May 2016), as well as others touching on the main clauses of the law that pensioner associations had asked the CoS to look into.