Renzi announces one-off payment to 3.7 million pensioners

(ANSA) - Rome, May 18 - Premier Matteo Renzi announced Monday that his cabinet approved a decree on pensions after a Constitutional Court ruling against a 2011 freeze on increases in higher State pensions. Some 3. 7 million pensioners will receive a one-time payout on August 1 after the court ruling last month. Renzi said people with State pensions of over 3,200 euros a month gross will be excluded.
He explained that under his government's pension repayment plan, cheques will vary according to an income scale with lower-income Italians receiving more.
For example, under the so-called Poletti plan - named for Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti - someone with a 1,700-euro monthly pension could receive a 750-euro reimbursement while a person with 2,700 euros monthly in pension payments would get about 278 euros. Renzi also promised that early retirement could be more readily available for those willing to take a pension cut. "Regulations of the past were too rigid," on pensions and retirement but changes in the government's budget stability laws will "give a little more room" for those who take a cut to retire early, he said.
The government's decision to reimburse lower-income pension holders in line with the April Constitutional Court ruling has averted the EU's infraction procedure over excessive deficits, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said Monday.
The plan reimburses only some pension holders, which could trigger controversy.
But if all pension holders had been repaid, the budget-to-GDP ratio would have risen to 3.6%, triggering EU action, he added.
Padoan also promised that a "more generous" indexing of some pensions to inflation will become a permanent feature, lifting some pension incomes permanently.
Next year, he said, he will introduce a "more generous mechanism for indexing than that used in previous years".
The minister said the new pensions decree approved by cabinet will affect any legal actions threatened over the new Poletti pension rules.
"I do not know if there will be (legal) appeals, but (if so) the appeals must take into account that with this decree, things have changed," said Padoan.
Numerous political critics have demanded the government repay the full amount of pension money withheld under the 2011 decree.
Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi said Monday that Renzi's proposal to give a 500-euro rebate was "unacceptable". "The Constitutional Court's sentence was clear," three-time premier Berlusconi said. "It's necessary to pay back all the pensioners what was taken from them. Renzi's initiative on the pensions is absolutely unacceptable".