Special social benefits
23.3.2005
WRITTEN QUESTION E-1279/05
by Antonio De Poli (PPE‑DE)
to the Council
Italian Legislative Decree 109/1998 laid down a single set of criteria establishing the family unit as a reference for the purposes of assessing the financial situation of a person applying for special social benefits (Article 2).
It also established (Article 3, paragraph 2) that, in the case of certain benefits, the reference may be a family unit different from that shown in the central register.
Subsequently, Legislative Decree 130/2000 further specified this possibility, stipulating that, in the case of persons in a serious condition receiving health benefits on a day-care, residential or semi-residential basis, the assessment of financial status should refer solely to the beneficiary and not to the family unit (introduction of the principle of individual income). This decree also provides for the issuing of two successive provisions. The first of these, from the Prime Minister's Office on a proposal from the Ministry for Social Solidarity (now Ministry of Welfare) and the Ministry of Health, was to establish the scope of the amendment introduced by Legislative Decree 130/2000. The second was to indicate clearly what health benefits would require the reference to individual income (of the benefits and conditions set out in Article 3f(3) of Legislative Decree 502/1992).
The first provision has not yet been issued, but is still at the stage of the draft drawn up in February 2003 by the Ministry of Welfare's Legislative Office (approved by the Ministry of Health's Legislative Office on 6 March 2003), which was forwarded one year later — in February 2004 — to the Secretariat of the Standing Conference for relations between the Italian Government, the Regions and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano and to the Directorate-General for Family and Social Policies and the Protection of the Rights of Minors, with a view to the draft provision being entered on the Unified Conference's agenda.
Is the Council aware of this state of affairs in Italy? Is it aware of the need to ascertain the impact of the application of the financial status indicator (ISE) at national level? Is it also aware that the application of the rule introduced by Legislative Decree 130/2000 in Italy will probably create further financial difficulties for local authorities and that priority should be given to determining essential rates of social benefits, as referred to in Article 22 of Law 328/2000? Will the Council take appropriate action to promote, with the resources available to it, the implementation of a more caring policy with regard to special social benefits?
OJ C 299, 08/12/2006