SYRIZA–Progressive Alliance has presented a wide-ranging proposal to transform EFKA, Greece’s national social security agency, into a Social Investment Fund, claiming the model could protect primary residences, create more than 300,000 social homes and strengthen the long-term reserves of the pension system.
At the heart of the proposal is a fundamental change in EFKA’s role. Instead of operating solely as an agency that collects contributions and pays pensions, it would become a major institutional investor with property assets, recurring income and stakes in companies and infrastructure considered strategically important to the public interest.
Restoring losses from the 2012 debt restructuring
The plan begins with what SYRIZA describes as compensation for the losses suffered by Greece’s social security funds during the 2012 private-sector involvement debt restructuring, commonly known as the PSI. The party estimates those losses at approximately €14 billion.
SYRIZA proposes that the Greek state provide EFKA with guarantees of an equivalent amount. According to the party, these guarantees would serve as the capital base for a new investment portfolio developed by EFKA in cooperation with the Hellenic Development Bank.
Purchasing non-performing loans
A key element of the plan involves EFKA and the Hellenic Development Bank acquiring portfolios of non-performing loans at what the party describes as their real economic value rather than their nominal value.
Borrowers would then be offered a new public debt-settlement process, including the cancellation of interest and surcharges, reductions in the outstanding principal where necessary and repayment plans reflecting each household’s actual financial capacity.
The primary residences of vulnerable households would be protected. Where a property had already entered the new public portfolio, its former owner could be given priority to remain in the home under a social-rent arrangement, provided that specific income and property criteria were met.
More than 300,000 social homes
Under the proposal, more than 300,000 properties could gradually become part of a permanent public stock of affordable social housing.
EFKA would work with municipalities to renovate, manage and rent out the properties at reduced rates. Part of the rental income would then be reinvested in the construction of additional social homes for young couples, working people and families struggling with rising housing costs.
SYRIZA contrasts its plan with the government’s housing policy, which it accuses of subsidising demand within an already expensive market. The opposition party argues that its own approach would increase the housing supply while creating public assets capable of generating recurring income for insured workers and pensioners.
Investment in strategic infrastructure
The proposed Social Investment Fund would also be able to invest in property, energy, transport networks and other strategic infrastructure, following the model of major pension funds operating internationally.
SYRIZA points to Canadian pension investments in Athens International Airport and an Australian pension fund’s acquisition of a 49% stake in Greece’s electricity distribution operator, DEDDIE. It asks why Greek workers and pensioners should not also benefit from returns generated by infrastructure within their own country.
Over time, the plan envisages EFKA acquiring stakes in strategically important companies—including the Public Power Corporation, Hellenic Petroleum, the National Bank of Greece and DEDDIE—with the stated aim of creating a strong public investor that combines returns for insured citizens with the protection of the public interest.
“We do not subsidise high prices. We build assets,” is the central message of SYRIZA’s proposal, which the party presents as a shift from auctions to housing protection and from temporary subsidies to the creation of permanent social wealth.
