(see related)
European Union sources said
Wednesday that Italy must not break the EU Stability and Growth
Pact to fix a hole in its budget created a court ruling on a
pension cap.
"Brussels will wait for the decision of the government on
this, to implement the Constitutional Court's ruling and it will
assess the impact on the accounts," the sources said.
"This must not compromise Italy's commitment to respecting
the rules of the Pact," the source said.
"The sustainability of the accounts must be a priority,
including in the light of the high pension spending".
Last week, Italy's Constitutional Court ruled the national
government cannot change pension payouts as had been set out in
2011 measures.
The aim of the measures announced in 2011 by the emergency
technocrat government of ex-premier Mario Monti was to
"equalize" high pensions by suspending some inflation indexing
so as to save - by some estimates - about 1.8 billion euros in
2012 and three billion euros in 2013.
The measures were to affect only pensions greater than
three times the minimum pension provided by national agency
INPS.
The plan came during a very low point in the Italian
economy, which was plagued by recession and very high interest
rates.
Still, those pension measures suspending inflation indexing
were unconstitutional, the court ruled last Thursday in
rejecting article 24 of the 2011 decree.
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