Although the make-up of Italy’s new coalition government (between two populist parties, the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the League) still needs ironing out, the two parties have ratified the final draft of the contract that lays out their vision for a ‘government of change’, and both Europe’s capitals and the financial markets are already worried. This ‘contract’ tries to include key measures from both parties. So for the M5S, this means a universal minimum income and environmental considerations and for the League it means a strong anti-immigration and anti-European stance. Experts readily remark that the 30-point program is devoid of coherence and is more a declaration of intentions than a detailing of any specific measures, and, which on top of everything, lacks the necessary financing.
Pensions: Fornero reform to be reviewed. One of the key shared election pledges from both parties was to review the Fornero pension reform that had sought to extend pension age to 66 years and 7 months (and in 2019 extend it further to 67 years). The new ‘government of change’ contract looks to propose two alternatives: (i) retire with 41 years of social contributions regardless of the worker’s chronological age and (ii) the ‘100 threshold’ that allows workers to retire when the sum of their age plus the number of contribution years totals 100 (thus the minimum age of 64 years has completely disappeared from the program).
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