Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras has warned that public pensions alone will fail to provide adequate income for future retirees, calling for urgent expansion of occupational pension schemes that currently cover only a small fraction of the Greek workforce.
Speaking at an insurance conference in Athens, Mr. Stournaras said the European Union is actively pushing to strengthen occupational pension plans to encourage long-term savings, but growth in Greece remains stymied by low worker participation and an underdeveloped domestic savings and investment culture.
He noted that Greece had just 27 occupational insurance funds covering roughly 55,000 members at the end of 2025 — a scale too small to generate efficiencies and one that keeps structural operating costs elevated.
Total assets across these funds stood at 621 million euros, with technical provisions near 550 million euros, despite both figures rising more than 20 percent compared with 2024.
Mr. Stournaras said occupational pension funds must take on a far larger role in the coming years, serving simultaneously as a safety net for retirees and as a channel for directing domestic savings into the broader European economy.
He called for coordinated action by regulators and employers to build public trust in private retirement tools, warning that without such trust, expansion would remain slow regardless of policy incentives.