Lower House Speaker Roberto Fico on
Monday gave the chamber's quaestors 15 days to come up with a
process leading to a proposal on "overcoming" the present system
of 'vitalizi' parliamentary pensions.
Fico is from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S),
which has long vowed to scrap vitalizi, seen as an unacceptable
perk.
"Politics should make sacrifices first," Fico said.
"We must recognise that after the (pension) reforms of the
last few years, the widespread feeling in the country is that
the political class has asked citizens for sacrifices without
being disposed to make them itself, first.
"We cannot remain inert", he said.
"One of the first directions we must move in is a reform of
the vitalizi which former MPs enjoy".
Among other things, Fico said, the review will have to look
at moving to a contributions-based system and carefully assess
any impact on the lowest vitalizi.
It should also consider setting a ceiling so that vitalizi
will not rise and assess vitalizi for former MPs who have been
convicted of criminal offences, he said.
Cutting vitalizi and parliamentary perks in general, long a
rallying cry for the M5S, was recently taken up by its possible
partner in government, the anti-migrant, Euroskeptic League
(formerly Northern League).
On March 27 League leader Matteo Salvini said certain
'vitalizi' were "immoral" and a "signal" needs to be sent by
scrubbing them.
Salvini said that given national pension reform that is going
to be "totally contribution-based", it was not possible to have
MPs or Senators who "have been getting a pension of two or three
million euros for some time after spending only as much as a
year in parliament".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
