[sotirisk]

And where have you read about this "widely misused pension system"? I am Greek and I can asure you that this is another one of the "rumors" floating around about Greece which, as all rumors, is a blatant lie.

In fact, the pension system in Greece has been following the European standards since at least 10 years.

I am so sick and tired of outsiders spewing nonsense all of the internet about Greece without knowing any real fact.

[castell]

No rumors, the source are the Greek Labour Ministry and the European Union.

Search for "greek pension abuse" on Google:

* Greece pulls the plug on pensions for the dead (Apr 25, 2012): http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/greece-benefits-id...

* 2% of Greek population abuse pension system (26 Apr, 2012): https://www.devere-group.com/news/Greek-population-abuse-pen...

* Greece Still Paying Dead Pensioners (Aug 17, 2013): http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/08/17/greece-still-payi...

* New Greek finance sham: 120,000 families claiming 'ghost pensions' for relatives who died years ago (12 October 2011): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048385/Greek-financ...

[coldtea]

If you read the articles -- and if you follow the proceedings in Greece, this is linkbaity headlines.

Title: "120,000 families claiming 'ghost pensions' for relatives who died years ago"

Actual content: "Greece has halted welfare or pension payments to 200,000 people either because they are unentitled to the money - or because they are dead, a Labour Ministry official said on Wednesday."

Not that the 200.000 number includes all pensions under examination -- and most of those were found to be absolutely OK in subsequent checks.

So, first the "dead getting pensions" were far from "120,000" (more close to a few thousands -- and of those "dead cases" most were recent deaths of a few months were the reported death wasn't yet registered (the bureacracy is chaotic).

The final tally was some 40.000 problematic pensions (which in a huge messy bureacracy like Greece includes pensions missing a few supporting documents, having 1% less "pension credits" than needed, etc), and around 2.500 cases of "dead pensioners".

Moreover, of those "dead pensioners" most were cases of people who died with no relatives etc and weren't declared to stop the pension being deposited. Of the 35 million euros deposited to dead pensioners, the state found that the 21 million euros were such and reclaimed it immediately ( http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.article&id=380165 ). The rest could be actual fraud cases.

Not as impressive as the BS baity headlines that preceded the investigation one year before. The government merely wanted to give an impression of wide corruption, in order to sweeten the passage of some anti-pension laws.

[makeitsuckless]

There are no European standards for pension systems. It's typically one of those things that hasn't been unified.

Both the pension fraud and the early retirement age in Greece where hotly debated and well documented topics, not "rumors".

I think the problem here lies in the different cultural perception of the phrase "widely misused". For Greek values, 1% is a bureaucratic rounding error. For North European values it's sign of massive corruption.