PENSIONS AND THE RULING OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE

With its ruling no. 70 of 30 April 2015, the Constitutional Court declared article 24, paragraph 25 of Italian Legislative Decree 201/2011 (so-called Manovra Salva-Italia), converted by Italian Law no. 214/2011 illegitimate, specifically the part which had frozen revaluation of pensions of amounts greater than 1,700 euro gross for the 2012-2013 two year period. According to the Court, with this provision, “the limits of reasonableness and proportionality have been crossed, with consequent detriment to the acquired right to a pension and with irreparable damage to the expectations legitimately held by the worker regarding retirement". Therefore affected retirees must be awarded a revaluation for the aforesaid period based on the original law. However, the day after this ruling, INPS (Italian Social Security) promptly explained with message no. 3135/2015 that any requests for re-establishment of pensions submitted for this purpose will not be granted for the time being, because of a lack of specific coverage as per article 81, paragraph 4, of the Italian Constitution. INPS has thus bought time and turned the problem over to the Government so it can adopt the appropriate legal initiatives. And an initial, although partial, prompt response from the Government did not fail to raise issues, particularly with trade unions. Last 18 May the Government gave the green light to a law decree on pensions, in an attempt to modify the obligations to reimburse the involved retirees. Specifically, in the decree published on 21 May 2015 in the Official Gazette and now waiting to be converted into law by the Parliament, a complete reimbursement is allowed for the lower pensions involved and a progressively decreasing one down to zero for pensions equal to 3,200 euro gross per month.