The literature has shown that, on the one hand, retrenchment interventions in the 1990s were made possible external constraints (vincolo esterno) posed by EU fiscal rules; on the other, external pressures were filtered by the domestic policy making, this leading to a strong protection of so-called acquired rights – via long phasing-in periods - in order to appease the unions.
Things have suddenly changed when the economic/debt crises have burst. In 2009-2011 several measures included in the austerity packages adopted by the Berlusconi and then Monti cabinets have repeatedly retrenched pensions especially by tightening eligibility conditions in the short run.
By revisiting the vincolo externo thesis, the paper argues, first, that European constraints actually represent irresistible forces only when they are coupled with pressures exerted by financial markets. Second, that differently from the past waves of reforms (1992-97 and 2001-08), recent pressures have led policy-makers to adopt measures which will be implemented in the short-run, this representing a novelty which testifies the enhanced disruptive potential of exogenous shocks on welfare states. Consequently, the ability of domestic actors to steer the reform process is dramatically challenged, ultimately turning pension rules into “fast moving objects” - in spite of resistance by the “insiders” and last but not least, neo-institutionalist predictions.
