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Victoria Mindova

If companies do not begin to pay their obligations to the insurance funds, they will go bankrupt. In 2011 it is allowed to renegotiate the method of payment of accumulated debts to the funds, otherwise seizures will follow. The government is ready to offer borrowers lower payments over a longer period of time and discounts on repayment in cash, just to collect a dime in insurance funds.

This is the alarm that the government sends to the business in the country, announcing a new settlement procedure to health and social insurance funds. The aim is to collect as much of the unpaid contributions from prior periods as possible. State funds collected around 1.6 billion euros in 2010 through re-negotiating the payment terms of the amounts due.

After the "tap" of the cheap loans to Greece stopped last year and it had to limit its spending only within the granted financial support, uncollectible obligations proved to be one of the main problems of PASOK. The reduction of high and low pensions and the trimming of the long list of social benefits as well as their compliance with the monthly household income proved insufficient to cover the black hole in social security. Freelancers and companies’ due payments to social security funds total over 10 billion euros. About 6 billion are the outstanding amounts to the largest fund - the Institute for Social Security and another about 4 billion euros to the fund of the free professions.

The Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Security George Koutroumanis said that after consultation with social partners, the Ministry sends a clear message to small and medium entrepreneurs, who have difficulties paying their obligations. If they do not benefit from the more favourable conditions they are likely to be deprived of their property in the due amount. "When one out of three entrepreneurs in the country does not pay social security, naturally, the funds survival is questionable," said Koutroumanis. He stressed that the companies should at least pay their current debts accumulated in the past two years, so that a reduction of social security contributions for employers to be introduced in the coming years.

"If companies can not withstand the pressure of the crisis, then the insurance funds will not handle. We are all walking a tightrope," said the chairman of small producers and craftsmen Dimitris Asimakopoulos. He was clear that at least 50% -60% of the indebted enterprises and freelancers have to respond to the call of the government for repayment of debts to the funds. "Nobody expects the obligations to be paid in full but a significant part of them must be settled," otherwise the failure of the social security system will be inevitable.