The Lower House on Thursday approved
cutting 'vitalizi' parliamentary pensions.
The Speaker's office OK'd a deliberation from Speaker Roberto
Fico of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S).
Fico said the deliberation envisages that the cut for former
MPs would go into effect on January 1 next year.
It is unclear whether Senate Speaker Maria Elisabetta Alberti
Casellati, a member of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's
centre-right opposition Forza Italia (FI) party, will keep
blocking the measure in the Upper House.
M5S leader, Labour and Industry Minister and Deputy Premier
Luigi Di Maio, asked if the Senate would follow suit, said "ask
Casellati".
Di Maio said "today is a historic day.
"At long last, the dream has become reality," he told M5S
members.
"At last it has arrived, today is the day that Italians had
been waiting for 60 years, the historic moment which we have
gifted our citizens after 100 days of government," Di Maio told
them.
The M5S MPs immediately feted the move by fanning out into
parliament square holding yellow balloons, their party colour,
and popping champagne corks.
House Speaker Fico said "I'm not giving up and I'll never
give up".
He said "today we have repaired a social injustice and
therefore a wound".
Fico said he was not afraid of suits on "acquired rights" to
the Constitutional Court.
"The deliberation is constitutional", he said.
He predicted that the Senate would follow suit.
"The Senate will make its assessments and will go forward and
will come to a similar conclusion," he said after the
foot-dragging from Casellati.
The vitalizi were seen as a symbol of unacceptable privilege
on the part of former MPs, who got large pensions even after
attending parliament for a very short time.
The M5S had vowed to cut them for some time.
Di Maio also said that so-called 'golden pensions' above
4,000 euros a month would be cut.
He said they would be cut "for those who have not paid in
enough contributions".
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