Talking about it began for the first time towards the end of the 90s, when the transition from the salary system to the contributory system gave rise to the need to make Italian workers aware of their future pensions, as recalled last Saturday by insert of the Sole24Ore “Plus24”. In the spring of 2009 Maurizio Sacconi, Minister of Welfare at the time, announced his intention to have every Italian citizen delivered "an annual certificate with his/her social security account statement and the projection of the future pension". The same promise made three years later by the Minister of Labor Elsa Fornero: "Now it's getting serious - she said - Workers need timely information to build their pension and the Italian version of the orange envelope is increasingly needed". Even the president of INPS, Antonio Mastrapasqua, last May joined the promises of the Minister and guaranteed that, by the end of December, one million Italians would receive a communication "with the amount of the check they will cash in retirement" .
Announcements, promises and good intentions: but the orange envelope never arrived in Italian homes. In Sweden this form of communication has existed for fifteen years now. Swedish workers are well aware of their pension future and, above all, they have all the information available to decide whether or not to join supplementary pension schemes. In our country, only 23% of Italians have supplementary coverage (the European average is 91%).
What will happen to the orange envelope in Italy is still uncertain. Also because, over the years, alongside the countless announcements, more than one denial has taken hold. Minister Fornero himself recently said that if the orange envelope were sent to a 35-year-old young man, "it would send an alarm message". The INPS declaration of three years ago was along the same lines: "If we were to give the simulation of the pension to para-subordinates, we would risk social upheaval".
