Italy: Conte’s government adopts the broad thrusts of the 2019 budget that incudes both the pension reform and the citizen’s income reform

On 15 October, following several days of intense internal debate between Italy’s ruling partners (the 5 Star Movement and The League), the Council of Ministers adopted the major elements of the 2019 budget and the fiscal decree, much of the content of which had already been leaked, resulting in an escalation in tensions with the EU Commission. Although the key measures still remain somewhat vague, the pension reforms do depart from earlier announced changes whilst the 5 Star Movement’s prized element, the ‘citizen’s income’ oscillates between being a measure that fights poverty and one that resembles unemployment benefit.
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The 100 threshold reviewed and corrected. Since flexible pensions that would wholly unwind the Fornero reform (that increased retirement age) would have been financially unsustainable, both governing parties scaled back their ambitions. So for 2019 “The 100 threshold” (workers can retire once the sum of their age and their social contributions years is equal to or exceed 100) will only affect those aged 62 at the youngest and with 38 years of contributions. In contrast with previously leaked in

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