
Gian Antonio Stella: Very much. The thing is, you can’t carry out reform if you don’t cut political costs. I would lose money if they changed the public pensions system, but I do believe it is a vital operation. The only way it can be pursued without people taking to the streets is to reform parliamentarians’ retirement pensions from the inside. It’s not justifiable to lower the pensions of average workers if you don’t first change the one received by members of parliament. Last year, the famously disgraced Italian politician [Piero] Marrazzo started earning a public pension at the age of 51. It’s ridiculous! What about the rule adopted in 1997? At least new MPs who weren’t grandfathered in to the pension system can’t exploit it, right?
There are lots of exceptions to the rule. The 1997 law is a fake reform. It only applies to members of parliament who are appointed post-2011. What kind of change is that? So what needs to change in order to ensure this doesn’t continue to happen?
Until right-wing voters demand more regulations, nothing is going to change. The problem is that today’s right-wing voters are too easy to satisfy. It seems like blowing up Palazzo Montecitorio [a palace in Rome housing the lower chamber of parliament] would be much easier. There’s nothing else that can be done on the ground level?
You can be sure that if voters get pissed, things are going to change. But as long as right-wing voters keep forgiving [recently resigned] Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is capable of taking a state-owned helicopter to a massage appointment, things are not going to change. And I’m talking about a helicopter belonging to the Italian police, just to be clear.