Pensions with Italy, procedures you must complete to benefit!

The decree within a few weeks by Italian President Sergio Mattarella is the final step towards recognizing pensions for citizens of the two countries.

The initiative is expected to benefit around 500,000 Albanians and around 4,000 Italians.

Deputy Minister of Economy, Olta Manjani, explains the procedure that citizens of both countries must complete to benefit from this agreement.

"One of the main articles of the agreement with Italy is the export of benefits, benefits provided in each country can be exported to the country of residence. An Albanian citizen living and working in Italy can apply for pension connection in the Italian state, then the exchange of data will be done automatically between the implementing institutions, which in the case of Albania is the Social Security Institute and in Italy it is the Italian IMS. This is done to reduce costs, as there will be no need for translation or notarization of documents, as these are automatically recognized by law enforcement institutions", said Olta Manjani, Deputy Minister of Economy.

This agreement will also benefit those citizens who reached retirement age several years ago, but were excluded from receiving a pension due to not having completed the minimum years of contributions, the minimum of 15 years in our country and 20 years in Italy.

"In the Albanian state, the minimum years to benefit from a pension are 15, Italy has 20. If an Albanian citizen had 14 years of work here, or 19 years of work in Italy, despite having a total of 33 years of work, he would not be able to benefit from a pension either in Albania or in Italy. In this case, out of 33 years, 14 years are benefited from the Albanian scheme and 19 from the Italian one," said Olta Manjani.

Albania is a country with high emigration in many countries around the world. Earlier, agreements for the recognition of pensions were signed with several countries such as: Italy, Austria, Turkey, Canada, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Hungary, Belgium, Macedonia, Luxembourg and Kosovo .

More precisely, 12 such agreements have been finalized, with the most important being the agreements with European Union countries, where the vast majority of Albanian emigrants are located.

Meanwhile, four other agreements are nearing finalization, mainly with Balkan countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Montenegro. But there are cases like Greece, where the largest number of Albanian immigrants are located, with which we do not yet have an agreement on pensions.

Despite open discussions, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel with this country.

After Italy, special importance is being paid to the recognition of pensions with the Greek state, where so far, according to the Deputy Minister, technical meetings have resulted in success.

"The attention of such agreements is focused on countries where there is a large presence of Albanians. Greece is one of them, where we have held two meetings at a technical level and in these fruitful meetings it has resulted that our schemes are very compatible," said Olta Manjani.

After Italy, agreements with Montenegro, Croatia, Bulgaria, Poland and Serbia are expected to enter into force. Albania currently has agreements on the recognition of pensions with 13 different countries. Negotiations are also underway with Serbia and Poland, while negotiations on pension agreements are also expected to begin with Denmark, Spain, Slovenia and Moldova, despite the fact that these countries have a much smaller share in terms of the number of Albanian emigrants. /Gazeta Panorama