Pension overhaul will happen - Di Maio

(ANSA) - Rome, November 19 - Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio said Monday that there were no doubts that the government's plan for a pension overhaul to effectively bring down the retirement age would go ahead. The 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader was responding after Tito Boeri, the president of pensions and social-security agency INPS, suggested the figures for the financial coverage of the reform do not add up. The government wants to make it possible for people to retire when their age plus their number of years of contributions add up to 100. Under this system, the earlier a person could start claiming a State pension would be 62. "I'd avoid pointless controversy," said Di Maio. "The level 100 (reform) will happen".
    In an interview with Corriere della Sera, Boeri said INPS had done many simulations related to the pension reform at the government's request.
    "They all necessarily imply a major increase in spending in the first few years," he said. "The idea that a flat, constant allocation of seven billion euros a year (can cover the reform) is not supported in the slightest way". Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini said Boeri's criticism of the government's policies was politically motivated and suggested the INPS chief might run in the leadership primaries of the opposition centre-left Democratic Party (PD).