Abstract

The author analyses the constitutional frame of reference of the Public Pensions system as resulted after about fifteen years of "reforms". Two main points are taken into consideration: the retirement age and the calculation of benefits. As regards the retirement age, he illustrates how the Dini Treu legislation of 1995 has introduced a flexible access to retirement, which has been cancelled by an Act of 2004; he stresses therefore the permanence of an "opaque" flexibility as opposed to the "transparent" one introduced by the reform of '95. As regards the calculation of benefits, the reform itself has foreseen such a long delay for its generalized and complete application that he can show how the old calculus could survive half a century. In general, and considering also the permanent plurality of institutions managing public pensions schemes, he notes that the "solidarity rate" expressed by the system is very low and uncertain. Conclusively, the author stresses that it is not possible to appreciate a precise model of retirement pensions: the old one being socially unfit and in different ways contradicted by the recent legislation which resulted incapable of building a new one coherent with the Constitutional values.