Argentina knows the European experience on pension reform

The EUROsociAL+ Programme supports to the Argentine Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security (MLESS) to reform the country’s pension system. Within the framework, the programme has organised an exchange visit for a delegation of Argentine officials to Milan and Rome. During this visit, the delegation met with politicians, academics, unions and social partners, to provide a broad and complete view of the pension reform experience in Italy.

The exchange visit began with a meeting between an MLESS official and the former Italian labour minister Elsa Fornero, who underlined the importance of generating actions relating to communication and providing timely information to the public regarding the reasons behind the need to reform the pension system. One of their concerns has been for citizens to have basic “financial education” so they can make responsible decisions about their future pension. In addition, great emphasis has been placed on the importance of the intergenerational pact, recalling that any pension reform has consequences not only for those who retire, but also for young people, who are usually those who transfer wealth to pensioners.

In Milan, the delegation of Argentine officials also met with Professor Renata Semenza, who coordinates a European-level investigation into self-employed workers  (a group that is difficult to cover at the pension level and which in Italy represents the occupational category with the highest growth in recent years). After hearing the academic point of view, officials have had meetings in Rome with the Istituto Nazionale di Previdenza Sociale (INPS), where they agreed with President Tito Boeri on the need to strengthen cooperation between Italy and Argentina on issues of technical interest and informational exchange.

While at the INPS the delegation mainly explored the financial sustainability of the pension system, while during the meeting with the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL) the discussion focused on the adequacy of the benefits granted under the current contributory regime in Italy.

The technical cooperation process with the MLESS on the European pension systems will continue with an exchange visit to Sweden and Germany, to allow knowledge to be gained on the pension schemes in force in these countries.