Inps, Fava in Brussels: “A global welfare forum in Rome in 2027”

A global welfare forum in Rome in June 2027. And, to get there with data and proposals, a permanent observatory on the future of welfare. This is the proposal that the President of the INPS, Gabriele Fava, presented in Brussels at the second CEO Roundtable of ESIP, (European Social Insurance Platform), the meeting that brings together the leaders of the social security and welfare institutions of the countries of the Union.

At the centre, the challenges that test all European social protection systems: the aging of the population and the decline in births, artificial intelligence and digital transformation, worker mobility and new forms of work.

«We are living longer, and it is the greatest achievement of twentieth-century Europe. Fewer children are being born, and this is the challenge that will mark this century. Technology runs faster than our rules, and workers and pensioners cross borders like never before,” Fava told his European colleagues. «Today in the Union there are around three people of working age for every over 65; by the end of the century there will be fewer than two. Behind these numbers there is the pact between generations on which Europe has built its social peace. Our welfare and social security systems and our national laws are different, and they must remain so. But challenges know no borders. They are the same, for everyone, and no country will win them alone."

Hence the proposal for the permanent observatory on the future of welfare, a technical and scientific workplace open to experts, European institutions and main national social security bodies, which will collect data, read trends and prepare the programmatic bases to be discussed and adopted at the Rome Forum. «Great choices are prepared with knowledge, not in the urgency of emergencies», explained the President. «I am thinking of an agile, concrete think tank, measured on results. And I want to be clear: another structure or a new level of bureaucracy is not being created, and no one will decide for others. Every choice remains with each state and each institution. What we have in common is the ability to look far away, together."

Present in Brussels with President Fava were the General Director Valeria Vittimberga, the Central Director of International Relations Giuseppe Conte and the manager Valeria Bonavolontà, the Central Director of Audit, risk management, compliance and Anti-fraud Alessandro Romano.

«The European social model is one of the highest forms of civilization that our continent has been able to build: the idea that no one is left alone in the face of illness, old age, the loss of a job», declared Fava on the sidelines of the meeting. «It is a unique heritage in the world, but it is not a guaranteed legacy. Today he asks for a burst of pride and the courage to renew himself. The Rome Forum will not be a place of just words. It will be a construction site, where ideas become solutions and solutions become shared choices, for a more resilient, fairer, more innovative welfare of European citizens.»

Then the reference to the origins. «In 1958, when the common market was still a project, Europe chose to start with people, protecting those who crossed a border to work. Almost seventy years later the borders have changed. They no longer run just between one country and another, but between one job and another, between one technology and another, between one generation and another. The choice, however, is the same as then: putting the person at the centre. Rome, in 2027, will be the place to renew it."