Quota 100 pension reform staying - Conte

(ANSA) - Rome, October 15 - Premier Giuseppe Conte said Tuesday that his new government will not scrap the 'quota 100' pension reform that was passed by his first administration.
    "Quota 100 is staying," Conte said.
    "We want to revise measures while keeping them". Ex-premier Matteo Renzi, the leader of the newly founded, centrist Italia Viva (IV) party, proposed scrapping the pension law that makes it possible for some people to retire early.
    The reform was passed by Conte's first government, which was based on alliance between the 5-Star Movement (M5S) and the League and collapsed when League leader Matteo Salvini withdraw his support for it in August. The M5S, is now in government for the 'Conte Two' executive with IV and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), was against abolishing the reform.
    Conte said his government will pass a "complex" budget bill later on Tuesday.
    Among other things, the package is set to avert a hike in value-added tax scheduled to kick in next year and set aside around three billion euros to reducing the labour-tax wedge.
    The premier denied reports the budget had created big rifts within his governing coalition.
    "It is always difficult for everyone to square the figures," he said at the end of an address at the CNR, the national research council.
    "But I read misrepresentations of reality in the newspapers.
    "The climate is not that which is being reported today".