BOLZANO. The provincial councilors’ life pension is back, renamed “deferred compensation”. The related bill tabled in the regional council bears the signature of the president of the assembly Roberto Paccher (Lega) and for now does not seem to encounter resistance from the other large majority party, the SVP. Also because it follows the old proposal by Josef Noggler, formulated when there was still discussion about how to abolish the automatic inflation adjustment of compensation – those of councilors, precisely – which already exceed 10 thousand euros gross. On the other hand, the unions immediately line up on the other side of the fence. They reject Paccher’s proposal: “It is unacceptable”.
The parties of the center-left, the opposition, do the same, mindful of the bitter discussion already last year on the bill of Noggler, at the time president of the regional council and now deputy of Paccher. The majority President Arno Kompatscher refers to the presidency office. “These issues are not handled by the executive,” he explains. Meanwhile, the group leader Harald Stauder expresses an initial opening of the Volkspartei on the bill of Paccher. “It seems very useful to me, also to reduce the costs of politics,” he observes. The text will be discussed by the legislative commission. It could arrive in the chamber between October and November.
“We’ll talk about it in the council group,” Stauder anticipates. It’s not as if Noggler had thrown in the towel last year. His text had been inundated with criticism, causing the author to end up in the crossfire of the opposition and the majority, who then decided not to proceed. In fact, today Noggler comments on Paccher’s “encore” as follows: “Ah, I won’t express myself on this topic anymore. I tried in the last legislature with a bill that didn’t suit anyone, at least immediately before the vote. Maybe now the new regional council thinks differently. We’ll see.” Christian Bianchi (Lega-Uniti) has doubts about the management of contributions directly in the hands of the Region rather than through a pension fund chosen by individual councilors. But above all, he says “no to annuities not supported by payments made, no to fanciful life annuities, no to the return of life annuities that were the subject of past disputes”. Like Kompatscher, regional councillor Angelo Gennaccaro (Civica) is also on holiday. For now, he limits himself to replying that “it is not something that has been discussed”. The opposition “If it is the old Noggler proposal, we were against it”, recalls Paul Köllensperger (TeamK).
And Sandro Repetto (Democratic Party) is still clearly against it. It would not be a peaceful rule like any majority might hope. «The other time – Repetto refers to the Noggler bill – we rejected it, now it must be examined in depth. A bill like this must be supported by data, which must be proportional». For Repetto, Paccher’s draft «comes like a bolt from the blue». But after all, the one on life annuities is an evergreen of the Council. «If they really want to abolish the costs, they should remove the supplementary pension fund», remarks the Pd councilor, «This seems to me to be an operation to restore old advantages and an insult to those who work their whole lives for a modest pension. On the method: as a majority councilor, Paccher could have presented his own idea to the Council, not managed it through a bill».The unionsThe unions are cold. “An unacceptable return to the past using public money when many electoral promises on pensions remain completely unfulfilled”, says Cristina Masera (Cgil). Mauro Baldessari (Uil) immediately declares himself “absolutely against it”.
Donatella Califano (Cisl) argues: «Today, life pensions no longer have any justification. All workers have careers in their lives with multiple contracts, with contributions paid to the most disparate pension institutions, paid in proportion to the amount of the salary and then reunited in a single amount to quantify the pension. This rule applies to “ordinary” workers, why shouldn’t it also apply to politicians? Obviously a particular role that gives a high salary for a period is advantageous, because it will affect the pension, raising it. It is no coincidence that politicians’ salaries are already very high precisely because the fact that one has to interrupt a personal career to dedicate oneself to politics is compensated». In TrentinoIn Trentino, the Cgil with Andrea Grosselli attacks: «An unacceptable privilege that demonstrates the distance of the League from real life and from the people that in words it claims to want to represent. While in Rome the Meloni-Salvini government seems intent on further tightening the pension system, here local politicians could guarantee themselves a lifetime pension with just 5 years, even non-continuous, of presence in the regional council”.
Therefore Grosselli, like the CISL and the UIL, is asking for “the cancellation of the life pensions wanted by the center-left”. CISL and UIL are signing a document without the CGIL. They write: “At a time when it would be appropriate to try to regain citizens’ trust in politics with concrete actions, this continuous attempt to restore the privileges of politics is incomprehensible. Autonomy must be used in the interest of all citizens”. Filippo Degasperi (Onda) attacks the voters harshly: “The people of Trentino knew very well in whose hands they were putting themselves and so did the people of Alto Adige. The difference is that in Alto Adige the SVP is paying for this, the party is losing votes, while in Trentino the center-right has gained more”. And again: “They distract people with bears and wolves and then let these things pass. They seem like the new, but they are the first republic, the most deteriorated one though”. Alessio Manica, leader of the Democratic Party, contests the method: “Something so delicate, a controversial issue, you do it with a discussion with everyone, not in secret. In 2014 we introduced the current system that provides for supplementary pensions, now this thing only fuels anti-politics. This exposes politics to public derision”.
2024-08-28 07:49:29