Paper Hell for Refugees: Pensioner Unable to Receive Her 115 Euros in Germany.

Ukrainian pensioners who are abroad due to the war have faced numerous bureaucratic obstacles while trying to restore their pensions, which have been suspended.

This is confirmed by the story of a 72-year-old resident of Zaporizhzhia, who moved to Germany with her daughter Natalia in March this year.

According to journalist and pension issues expert Serhiy Korobkin, 'For a year after leaving, the Ukrainian pensioner continued to receive her pension on a bank card that the family did not use abroad.' Since there was no activity/movement of money on the card, after a year the pension payments were stopped, as required by law. 'The suspension of pension payments came as an unpleasant surprise since the family was unaware of such a rule,' Korobkin noted.

According to Natalia, who shared this story with the editorial team of 'Na Pensii', attempts to restore payments have turned into a real bureaucratic nightmare. Firstly, it is almost impossible to get an appointment at the consulate - you can only register electronically, which is already a problem for many pensioners.

Furthermore, the processing of necessary documents requires significant financial costs. 'One certification of the document costs 9 euros, and an official translation is 40 euros,' the woman explained. To restore payments, several documents need to be prepared: an application to the Pension Fund, a document on temporary protection, a certificate of the person's life, a document on the residence registration in Berlin, and a copy of the Ukrainian passport. The costs for preparing the documents amounted to at least 189 euros, while the pension amount is only 115 euros.

However, even after collecting all the documents and sending them to Ukraine, the Pension Fund refused to restore payments. The reason was the document on temporary protection, which did not directly state 'temporary protection', only referring to 'paragraph 24' of German legislation.

'Ukrainian and German bureaucracy have united, and it is quite difficult for elderly refugees to overcome this,' Korobkin summarized. The consulate confirmed that it is not their responsibility and advised contacting German authorities, but they have also stopped responding to inquiries.

This situation raises the question: why is a certificate of the person's life needed when a person is already going through a complex procedure and providing other documents? Why can't the 'Diia' system, where everything is verified, be used? And why is the possibility of remotely updating the pension payment on the electronic services portal of the Pension Fund functioning limitedly? Unfortunately, currently, there are no answers to all these questions.