Durigon: retirement at 64 for 80,000 pensioners who have been paying contributions since 1996

Allowing workers who began paying contributions before 1996 to retire at the age of 64: according to INPS estimates, this would result in around 80,000 additional pensions.

Ahead of the forthcoming Budget Bill, the proposal put forward by the Under-Secretary of State for Labour, Claudio Durigon, was outlined in detail during the Lega event ‘A tua difesa, verso la Finanziaria 2027’ in a face-to-face discussion with the President of INPS, Gabriele Fava.

Durigon explained that implementing the proposal – which provides for retirement at 64 even for workers in the so-called ‘mixed’ system – with their pension amount recalculated under the contributory scheme – would cost 1.5 billion a year and could be rolled out on a trial basis over the next three years. “We want to give those who started working before 1996 the chance to choose,” he added, “just as has been done for those under the purely contributory scheme,” said the Under-Secretary.
As for sustainability and the possible objections from the Minister for the Economy and Finance? “Minister Giorgetti agrees,” added Durigon. “Pension expenditure stands at 326 billion, whilst revenue amounts to 296 billion. But who is the employer of pensioners? It is the State. Those 326 billion are gross figures; to arrive at the net figure of 76 billion, that amount must be deducted from the 326 billion – it is clear that the sustainability of the pension system in Italia is strong.” In 2026, for flexible early retirement at 64 for those with a purely contribution-based pension (with contributions paid from 1 January 1996), 20 years of actual contributions are required and the income threshold is three times the social allowance (€1,638.72).

In recent days, the CGIL had rejected this proposal, estimating that for an annual salary of 35,000 euros, the pension calculated under the mixed system would be approximately €1,726 per month, whereas under the contribution-based recalculation it would fall to around €1,543, representing a reduction of 10.6 per cent. It should be noted that the 2025 Budget Act had provided for a minimum of 25 years’ contributions for those who had used the supplementary pension to reach the minimum payment threshold, a measure which the State General Accounting Office had estimated would have affected a potential 100,000 pensioners, but this provision was subsequently superseded by the 2026 Budget Act.

Durigon himself has spoken out in favour of freezing pension adjustments for pensioners who move abroad and, on the other hand, the many young people who leave the country every year to seek work elsewhere, he proposed introducing a 5 per cent flat tax for a period of five years for employers who take on young people: ‘We must ensure that young people stay in Italia, by offering them incentives to remain here or to return from other countries.”