Pensions, the reform for 2025 hanging on the Def, with risk of postponement

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With the majority concentrated on the electoral match being played in recent months, between appointments for the Regional elections and the “European” round next June, and with a public finance situation still in difficulty, the issue of pensions has practically disappeared from the government agenda. Although already in the Def, the Economic and Financial Document, which will be presented in mid-April, the government could be forced to give at least some clues on the social security route it intends to trace in 2025. The bridging measures launched with the latest budget, by Quota 103 in the “penalized” version of the extension of the Social Ape and the Women’s Option in a further reduced format, will all run out on 31 December 2024. And with the impossibility of resorting to a massive extra deficit, the margins to trigger a new social security reform are already from next year they appear much reduced. Also because measures like Quota 41, perhaps totally linked to the contributory method, would need substantial coverage. If the path of a structural intervention were to prove impracticable, imposing a new postponement, the executive will in any case have to decide whether to extend Quota 103 in its current form and the other early exit channels currently foreseen for 2024 only or to resort to some new solution, such as Quota 104 (possibility of leaving at 63 years of age and 41 years of payments) which had appeared in the first drafts of the latest budget law.

The government’s goal: a balanced reform

The last time Giorgia Meloni spoke about pensions was at the press conference at the beginning of the year, stating that «the social security reform must be built with balance: the best possible system but the same for everyone». A reform, therefore, to be defined without haste and possibly, according to Palazzo Chigi, with the collaboration of all social partners. Which, however, after the series of meetings last year, in 2024 on the topic of social security have so far never been dismissed by the executive. And this would suggest that 2025 will not be the year of structural reform.

The unions immediately ask for a table on pensions

For the unions, pensions remain a priority, as the leader of the CGIL, Maurizio Landini, said to Il Sole 24 Ore on 23 March. Cgil, Cisl and Uil ask that the social security table be restarted immediately to identify solutions that guarantee greater flexibility in exiting the social security system and forms of “guarantee” for young people.

«Contributory» quota 103 runs out at the end of the year

Quota 103 (the exit with 62 years of age and 41 years of contributions) in the penalized version, i.e. with the contributory recalculation of the allowance and a ceiling on the amount of the treatment, will run out at the end of 2024. And always at the end of the The Social Ape and Women’s Option in the current format will also expire this year.

Possible clues arriving from the Def regarding a new postponement of the reform

In mid-April the government will present the Def, which will outline the macroeconomic framework for 2024 and give an initial indication of the public finance objectives for 2025 and subsequent years, which will then be definitively set with the update note to the Def itself, expected at the end of September. The weight of the public debt, which should in any case be decreasing, and the trajectory of the deficit, which will decrease significantly compared to the 7.2% recorded by Istat in 2023 (also due to the further repercussions of the Supebonus), but which should still have a fairly brisk pace, should not leave sufficient space available for the government to initiate a 360-degree social security reform. The executive itself, moreover, will not be able to resort to a marked extradeficit for 2025 and will have to ensure the continuity of some structural measures already launched, such as cutting the wedge and tax reform. A further postponement of the social security reform therefore appears to be anything but a remote possibility. In any case, nothing more than a few clues should come from the Def regarding social security.