There are about 33 of them and they cost around 3,3 billion each year. The Constitutional Court has ruled that it is not permissible to touch their pension checks, not even for a temporary solidarity contribution. But who are the golden pensioners?
At a technical level, these are people who collect an annual pension income of more than 90 euros. We always talk about gross figures, of course. As Il Corriere della Sera writes today, treatments ranging between 90 and 150 thousand euros total around 1.500 and require the State to spend 330 million a year. Those that exceed 200 thousand euros are instead 1.200, for a cost of 275 million.
The wealthiest of the Italian retirees is Mauro Santinelli, former top-manager of Telecom (as well as inventor of the prepaid service Tim Card, to be clear), who earns 3 euros a day (!), or over 90 a month. This was revealed by Mario Giordano, who reviews various cases in the book "Sanguisughe" (published by Mondadori). The best known are certainly those concerning former parliamentarians, who however have very little in common with ordinary citizens, since annuities are established independently by the Chamber and the Senate.
Recently, the 31 euros received by Giuliano Amato aroused controversy, but he defended himself by explaining that it was a gross figure that included the annuity, which was donated to charity by the former prime minister. The ranking also includes another ex of Palazzo Chigi, Lamberto Dini (40 euros gross per month), slightly surpassed by the CEO of F2i, Vito Gamberale (44). Less rich, but equally golden, are the pensions of the current ECB number one Mario Draghi (14.843) and of the former president of Generali, Cesare Geronzi (22 euros). All the former members of the Consulta also travel over 20 a month.
More than the numbers themselves, the problem is in the way these pensions are granted. Very often it is not a question of normal calculations on the basis of contributions regularly paid during working life, but of simple privileges granted to those who have reached particularly important positions. In short, as always, if you don't want to be demagoguery, you have to distinguish case by case and the origin of the check makes the difference.
The sum that was requested from gold pensioners was certainly not decisive for the maintenance of public finances, since it would have yielded only 25 million a year. The point was another: it was a question of launching a signal of equity and social solidarity in a period of enormous sacrifices for the most disadvantaged economic groups.
However, the Consulta considered that the levy was discriminatory. The measure, introduced by the Berlusconi government and then reinforced by Mario Monti's team, provided for a 5% contribution for the portion exceeding the 90 euro pension. A share that rose to 10% over 150 and 15% over 200. It would have lasted only until 2014, but according to the judges it was unacceptable because it only affected pensioners. Whether they were gold, it seemed, was irrelevant.
