The pensions kept entire villages going in southern Albania, where the largest number of receivers lives.
Struggling with its finances, Greece is looking to cut expenditures wherever it can, including pensions given to Albanian citizens of Greek ethnicity.
Greece has been financing a pension scheme primarily in southern Albania for the past 15 years, offering economic assistance to those it considers part of its own population in neighboring countries.
The reduction of expenditures by the Greek government is expected to affect several thousand elderly Albanian citizens who are members of the Greek minority.
Albania’s private television station Top-Channel reported this week that there are also a large number of Albanians who for purely economic reasons have declared themselves to be ethnic Greeks in order to benefit from supplementary pension schemes which at 250 to 480 euros per month can offer an economic boost in Albania.
The pensions kept entire villages of old folks going in southern Albania, where the largest number of receivers live.
At first, Greece cut the pension to allow only one family member to benefit, then it requested a lot of additional documents which are difficult to obtain since most of these pensioners live in Albania, Top-Channel said, quoting people in the area.
While the new limitations hurt the receipts directly, they also have an indirect impact on Albania as a whole, because the benefit of additional income from these pensions represented a significant influx of currency and welfare in places like Gjirokastra, Saranda, Himara and others.
The move by Greece could be part of the financial measures inside that country, which involve changes to income, taxation and include salary freezes and cutbacks in benefits.
The Greek government also announced plans to raise the country’s retirement age in order to save money on pensions inside Greece.
Greece is struggling to curb a soaring deficit. Its budget deficit is, at 12.7 percent of GDP, more than four times higher than euro zone rules allow. Its debt is about 419 billion dollars.
