The government is attempting to put a definitive end to a pending issue that had troubled tens of thousands of widow's pension beneficiaries for 10 years, with the new legislative regulation announced from the floor of Parliament by the competent Minister of Labour, Niki Kerameos.
The intervention, which comes as a continuation of others dismantling the Katrougalos law – chiefly the non-reduction of pensions with a personal difference by up to 18%, the change in contributions for the self-employed and the gradual abolition of the personal difference – provides for the non-reduction of the widow's pension after the lapse of three years.
At the same time, it maintains the granting of two national pensions in the prescribed cases and relieves insured persons of the risk of paying retroactive amounts due to the non-implementation of the law in previous years.
The most important change concerns the abolition of the provision of the Katrougalos law, according to which the widow's pension had to be reduced by 50% after three years, if the surviving spouse works or also receives his or her own pension.
In practice, the percentage of the deceased's pension paid to the beneficiary should have been limited from 70% to 35%. Although the provision should have been applied, in practice, from 2020 (at least three years after the passage of the Katrougalos law, on 14 May 2016), it was not applied except for 8,500 pensioners of the public sector and OGA.
On the other hand, for about 75,000 widow's pension beneficiaries, who come mostly from the private sector, the pending issue remained open, creating uncertainty both about future earnings and about the possibility of retroactive claims by EFKA.
With the new regulation, these approximately 75,000 private-sector widow's pension beneficiaries are definitively relieved of this threat. They will continue to receive 70% of the deceased's pension even after the lapse of three years, without any reduction, while any possible obligation to return amounts for the period during which the cut was not applied will also be erased.
For example, if an insured person received a pension of 1,200 euros. The widow's pension, to his or her spouse, after his death, corresponds to 70%, that is 840 euros. Under the previous regime, if the beneficiary worked or received his or her own pension, after three years the amount should have been reduced to 420 euros.
With the new provision, the 840 euros are maintained in full, without any cut.
Approximately 8,500 widow's pension beneficiaries of the Public sector and the former OGA, to whom the cut had already been applied since 2020, will also have an immediate financial benefit. After the passage of the provision, their pensions will return from 35% to 70% of the deceased's pension, with the first increases estimated to appear in the September payments.
However, the government does not provide for the payment of retroactive amounts for the reductions already imposed, an element that is expected to become the subject of legal discussion, if not claims as well.
Indicatively, a pensioner who received a widow's pension of 350 euros after the cut will see the amount return to 700 euros, provided that this corresponds to 70% of the deceased's pension. The increase will be permanent, but it will not be accompanied by the return of the amounts lost in previous years.
The national pensions
The second important intervention concerns maintaining the two national pensions in cases where the accumulation arises from different insurance rights, as happens with many widow's pensions.
In this way, a new income reduction is prevented for approximately 122,000 pensioners, who were at risk of losing the second national pension, that is, on average about 312 euros per month.
The risk was initially confirmed with the “Tsakloglou circular” in 2022 and then with the recent decision of the Council of State, which clarified that in the event of an accumulation of pensions from different rights, only one national pension is paid.
According to the Kerameos intervention, after the new legislative provision, which is expected to pass through Parliament as an amendment within July, there will be no cut whatsoever. Thus, for example, a pensioner who receives his or her own main pension and at the same time a widow's pension will continue to collect both national pensions corresponding to the different insurance rights, without any change in his or her monthly earnings.
The Minister of Labour linked the possibility of implementing this specific intervention to the better fiscal course of the insurance system. According to the data she presented, in the first four months of 2026 the revenues of the insurance funds exceeded the target of the Medium-Term Programme by 517 million euros, a development attributed mainly to the expansion of the digital work card and the increase in declared employment.
Therefore, there is the fiscal space that will cover the cost of the interventions. According, moreover, to information, only for the restoration of widow's pensions from 35% to 70% of the deceased's pension, for those pensioners whose amount has already been cut, the cost is estimated at approximately 48 million euros per year.
It remains to be clarified, the actuarial cost of the intervention not only of the returns but also of the non-cuts, as the dismantling of the Katrougalos law, apart from political consequences, also has serious fiscal – albeit long-term – consequences.
With this specific legislative initiative, the ministry seeks to definitively close a long-standing insurance pending issue, restore legal certainty for widow's pension beneficiaries and ensure that there will be no new reductions in their earnings.
For thousands of households, the change translates either into an immediate increase in monthly income or into the definitive preservation of today's amounts, without the fear of future cuts or retroactive claims.