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  Demonstration in Rome

Italians Face Strike over Pensions

By Tony Barber, The Financial Times

March 10, 2004

Italy's three largest trade unions on Wednesday called a one-day general strike in an effort to derail the centre-right government's plans to reform pensions before elections in June.

The CGIL, CISL and UIL, which represent more than 11m workers and pensioners, will hold the strike on March 26. It will be the second such strike in six months and the third full-scale general strike since Silvio Berlusconi became prime minister in May 2001.

The stoppage will occur at a critical time for the government, whose push for pensions reform comes during a long period of stagnation that may influence June local and European Parliament elections.

Opinion polls point to a close battle between the four-party ruling coalition and the centre-left opposition. A Mannheimer poll, published on Tuesday in Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading newspaper, gave 45 per cent to the centre-right, 40 per cent to the centre-left Olive Tree coalition, 10.5 per cent to two other leftist parties and 4.5 per cent to minor parties.

In most parts of Italy the March 26 strike will last four hours, but in the Lazio region surrounding Rome and on the island of Sicily it will last eight hours, Guglielmo Epifani, the CGIL leader, said.

Calling the government's pensions proposals unfair, Mr Epifani said: "We think the game is not over, as can be seen by the big difficulties and divisions inside the government."

The reform is meant to raise the average retirement age from 2008, making annual savings of 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product on Italy's state pensions bill and helping lower the public debt, now at 106.2 per cent of GDP.

The government presented its proposals to the full Senate, the upper house of parliament, on Tuesday for the first time since it took office. But it swiftly returned the bill to a Senate commission, where it will stay until April 19.

The bill's appearance in the Senate came as European Union finance ministers were meeting and was mocked by opposition politicians as a tactic intended to fool Italy's EU partners and the European Commission into thinking the reform was making progress.

However, government ministers stressed their commitment to implementing the pensions reform, calling it a duty to future generations of Italians.

Coalition legislators point out that the Northern League, a junior government party, has always insisted that parliamentary approval of the pensions plan should follow, not precede, another controversial measure to reshape Italy's system of government and boost the north's autonomy. This measure is making its way gradually through the Senate.

The trade unions called their strike as Italy's statistical office published figures showing the economy ground to a halt in the fourth quarter of 2003. Falls in exports, private consumption and investment in machinery and equipment meant that there was no quarter-on-quarter economic growth between October and December.


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