Reply #31: Italian Lawmakers Back Monti to Keep Pensions, Critics Say

[Owlet]

"Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti won a final parliamentary confidence vote, granting full power to his new government after pledging to spur growth and reduce debt in the euro-region’s third-largest economy.

The 630-seat Chamber of Deputies voted 556 to 61 in favor of Monti’s new administration of technocrats, following the Senate’s approval yesterday. Monti said today he wanted his government to last until elections scheduled in 2013, though that depended on retaining the support of parties. The Northern League’s lawmakers 59 voted against him today.
Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- As Italy’s politicians came together this week to back a technical government, calling it the only way to rescue the country from financial ruin, critics say their main goal was really saving their own pensions.

'Half the guys in there are worried about getting their pensions or increasing them by staying in office longer,' said Luca Barbareschi, a lawmaker in Italy’s lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. 'It’s definitely a motivation,' said Barbareschi, who entered parliament in 2008 as a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party and switched to independent status this year.

As politicians plot the country’s future, ordinary Italians are being asked to postpone retirement under proposed austerity legislation that calls for raising the pensionable age to 67 from 65, as the country tries to cut its 1.9 trillion-euro ($2.6 trillion) debt, which amounts to 120 percent of gross domestic product. To underscore the urgency of the issue, Italy’s new Prime Minister Mario Monti appointed Elsa Fornero, an expert on the pension system, as welfare minister to work on reforms"

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