The new Plan for the Benefit for the Support of Pensioners with Low Income was approved by the Council of Ministers at today's meeting, following a proposal presented by the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Ms Anastasia Anthousi. The new Plan significantly simplifies the procedures and the way of submitting applications, reduces the timeframe for examining applications, while at the same time maintaining the safeguards for the granting of the Benefit. In addition, under the new Plan, the application for the Low Pensioner's Allowance is decoupled from the obligation to submit a parallel application for an EHIC, a process that required time for assessment, and thus the process of examining actual EHIC applicants is relieved.
In her remarks after the Cabinet meeting, Ms Anthousi described the new Scheme as important, as now "all low pensioners without exception are given the right to apply for participation in the Scheme. As had become apparent, some of the low pensioners under the existing framework, who were receiving Low Pensioner's Allowance before 2014, had not taken advantage of the extension granted by the Government which expired in 2020 and therefore could not be assessed for the Low Pensioner's Allowance despite the fact that they may have fallen within the provisions of the Scheme."
"The Plan now completes the arrangement to support low pensioners and corrects the minor weaknesses that existed until now and implements the Government's decision that no low pensioner will receive less than €710 for single households and €1.210 for a low pensioner couple", the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare stressed.
The new Plan will be implemented from 1 January 2023.
(MKY)
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