Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou informed on Monday the House finance committee that Cyprus is expected to submit key pension reform bills to parliament before the end of 2025.<\/p>\n
Panayiotou reassured consultations with social partners are nearing completion, and any agreed changes will be incorporated into revised bills already under review by the attorney-general\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
He did acknowledge the timetable is \u201cambitious but achievable,\u201d aiming for committee discussions to begin immediately after the Winter recess.<\/p>\n
The minister said the government\u2019s action plan on renewing collective agreements and extending minimum wage coverage will be finalised in the first quarter of 2025 and sent to the European Commission.<\/p>\n
He stressed that linking the cost-of-living allowance (CoLA) to the minimum wage benefits low-income earners, while clarifying that CoLA adjustments do not determine minimum wage levels.<\/p>\n
He also confirmed that the long-discussed exemption from the 12 per cent penalty for early retirement at 63 was not approved, adding that this issue will be addressed in the pension reform.<\/p>\n
Panayiotou confirmed the bill governing paid internships is ready for submission. On artificial intelligence, he noted that authorities are preparing safeguards to support workers who may face layoffs as automation expands.<\/p>\n
Debts to the social insurance fund amount to nearly \u20ac200 million, of which legal proceedings have begun for \u20ac40 million. About 95 per cent of annual contributions are collected on time. Panayiotou did not detail new legislation for overdue debts, referencing only previous schemes.<\/p>\n
The labour ministry\u2019s 2026 budget stands at \u20ac951 million, \u20ac67 million higher than in 2025.<\/p>\n
Excluding \u20ac29 million in EU-co-funded projects, total managed funds reach \u20ac980 million, with 75 per cent allocated to general government contributions, 21 per cent to benefits and programmes, 3 per cent to personnel, and 1 per cent to operating costs.<\/p>\n
Social policy spending will reach about \u20ac205 million, including \u20ac151 million for benefits.<\/p>\n
Beyond its own budget, the ministry oversees major national funds. For 2026, proposed expenditures include \u20ac2.74 billion for the social insurance fund, \u20ac132 million for the central holiday fund, \u20ac58 million for the redundancy fund, and \u20ac231,000 for the employer insolvency fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou informed on Monday the House finance committee that Cyprus is expected to submit key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-139674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}