21 July 2007
Council of Ministers: Pensions
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“Last night, many Ministers together with the representatives of workers and employers were discussing the issue of pensions. Thus, this is what we talked about at this Friday’s Council of Ministers. The agreement was explained and the Council of Ministers accepted the decisions taken by the President Prodi and by the Ministers Padoa Schioppa and Damiano. The Maroni reform set out the increase of pensionable age through the so-called “scalone” {steps}. We decided to keep the increase in the pensionable age but going ahead progressively. It seems to me to be a good agreement: as jolts damage the social peace. The reform, then, gives pride of place to increasing the lowest pensions. This makes it possible to keep the financial balance of the social security system and it means we avoid sanctions from the European Union. Each one tried to “get more of the duvet” but it was found necessary to make sure there are funds for the current pensions, above all the lowest ones, and for those for our children. I believe that we have done the best that is allowed by the public finance situation, in a crisis for the last 50 years, but we need to keep in focus, as I have done, the fight against tax evasion.
There was tension: D’Alema explained that this political agreement makes it possible to keep the coalition together. If on such an important issue, it hadn’t been possible to find an agreement, the only alternative would have been for the government to resign.
The main sticking points came from the ministers Ferrero and Bonino: the responsibility of the government has been to find the agreement. There was also the CIPE meeting: we decided to provide finance for the metro line 4 in Milan, after having found the resources for the lines in Rome and the Palermo junction. Soon there’ll be the financing of the metro in Turin.
While the political chatterers are talking, here in the Ministry of Infrastructure, we try to bring home the results: in fact, we also approved contracts with Reti Ferroviarie Italiane {Italian rail network}and with Anas (road network), in which there is a list of each of the activities to be carried out. You can find these on the website of the Ministry.
In particular, there are 4 important rail projects starting, all in the South: Caserta-Foggia, Bari-Taranto, Palermo-Messina and the Palermo junction. We have set down the money for the cross-frontier networks of Brennero, Turin-Lyons, and Trieste, in accordance with our agreement a few days ago with the European Union.
Thus, we are in a position to identify the works that are a real priority, not mirages of the framework law, by investing 30,000,000,000 euro in 5 years as well as another 90,000,000,000 gathered together from residual liabilities, European funds and private financing.
Finally, in many parts of Sicily, there’s still a lack of water because the dams never get finished. I have got approval for a time limit and beyond this time any funds that have been paid out will be claimed back, to avoid the situation of wages getting paid out and work remaining unfinished.”
Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Information