“A brazen and deceptive measure. It is yet another short-term idea by a gentleman chasing votes.” This is how Elsa Fornero, the Turin professor who is the author of the pension reform that the centre-right (especially the League) has been contesting for years, judges the new quota 100 that the Meloni government has decided to relaunch in the latest budget law. There is talk of an 850 million euro fund which should finance people leaving work even at the age of 64. In recent days Matteo Salvini revealed the existence of an agreement in the majority to “overcome the Fornero law” and allow “many Italians to recover three years of life” compared to the current retirement age.
The new 100 quota of the League
The League’s idea would be to return to the 100 mark, also allowing people to leave work at 64, but only if they have 36 years of work behind them. Today this possibility already exists, but in general it is reserved for those who started paying contributions from 1 January 1996 and fall entirely within the contributory system. Now Salvini’s party aims to extend the measure to those who started working before 1996, but on one condition: accepting the recalculation of the contribution of the allowance. But leaving your job three years early would result in the application of a lower transformation coefficient. It means losing a lot of money, although based on current information it’s difficult to say how much.
“He still hasn’t understood how a social security system works”
It is precisely on this that Elsa Fornero’s opinion is clear. “It’s not a structural reform, but people make themselves believe that it is. It’s yet another short-term idea by a gentleman in search of votes, who hasn’t even noticed that the many who had voted for him in the past believing in his promises no longer see early retirement as a benefit for themselves or an advantage for young people – the former minister tells La Stampa today, referring to Matteo Salvini -. If anything, they’ve understood that with longer lifespans it’s important to retire a little later, and with a proper check.”
According to Fornero, that of Deputy Prime Minister Salvini “is a personal issue, a ringworm issue. So he can say that he has dismantled the Fornero law, even if only for a year. He has not yet understood how a social security system works. He has not yet found even a competent person who can explain it to him clearly”.
The Turin professor argues her point of view in this way, answering Alessandro Barbera’s questions: “The law introduces a fund for financing, apparently on a three-year basis, for the early retirement of people still at work. And precisely: anyone, not specific categories in difficulty. The government has been careful not to say that, if the calculation is entirely contributory, the pension will inevitably and significantly be lower than that which would be obtained by working for a few more years”.
What would be the deception
The former minister concludes: “The so-called flexibility is part of the deception. You cannot call this advance ‘flexibility’ without specifying that it will be financed with a new tax paid by pensioners, people who receive far from rich allowances, and who in the past have already suffered real losses as a result of de-indexation. This proposal completely ignores the priorities of the country and the future of young people. Are we sure, for example, that it would not have been fairer to tax inheritances in a transparent way and thus increase funding for schools?”.