TIRANA, 10 September
The Albanian immigrants working in Italy have started an online petition, where they request to the Italian government to acknowledge their contributions, for their retirement. On the petition titled ‘The pension is a right, we support the Italian-Albanian agreement’ (in Italian: La pensione e’ un diritto, sosteniamo l’accordo Italia-Albania) is noted that Italy has signed agreements with other countries regarding retirement benefits, but not with Albania yet.
These agreements enable the people who come from abroad, to have the same benefits and rights, as the citizens of the host country, in this case, Italy. The petition says: “Between agreements, unfortunately, is missing the one with Albania. In Italy, the Albanian community is well integrated, and part of the social and manufacturing structure. The community counts around 430.000 Albanians, from which 70% of them have a long-term residence permit. The Albanian citizens who are building their future in Italy, for themselves and their children, are working here for almost 30 years, especially in construction and agriculture.
And today- the petition continues -a growing part of them is suffering the fact that between Italy and Albania, there isn’t any agreement for the mutual acknowledgment of pension contributions. The Albanian workers in Italy that are on the verge of retirement age, have given contributions in Albania (before they emigrated), and also in Italy.
The lack of an agreement between the two countries, doesn’t allow them to retire, in their country of origin, as well as in the host country, penalizing that part of Albanian population that has sacrificed more for this integration, that made possible for the second generation of Albanian immigrants in Italy to be so well integrated into society”-says the petition on change.org.
Furthermore, the petition says that the Albanian counterpart has shown the will to reach an agreement. In the end, the petition closes by calling the Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, to negotiate and approve with an accelerated procedure the Italian-Albanian agreement that guarantees the workers of both countries, to recognize it as a fundamental right, as is the pension. The petition requires 5.000 signatures, and until this moment there are collected 4681 signatures.
Source and Photo Credit/Change.org
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