Madrit worked in Italy for 12 years and another 27 years in Albania but he isn’t receiving a full retirement check. Albania doesn’t recognize his retirement age and neither does Italy.
“We left back in 1991, when the first wave of emigrants left Albania. We began working and after working for 12 years, I returned home. I am currently living here with half a retirement check, even though I worked in Albania for 27 years, and I receive 140 euro per month, because I lack the years that I spent working in Italy,” he said.
This is an issue shared by thousands of Albanian immigrants, who are asking for a combination of their employment years in Albania and Italy, so that they can benefit a full retirement pension.
“We have worked in Albania for 15 years, in addition to working in Italy for 10-15 years. However, neither country acknowledges our full retirement age,” says another citizen.
In order to retire in Italy, a citizen should have worked a minimum of 20 years, whereas in Albania, you need a minimum of 15 insured years of work in order to benefit from a partial pension, and 35 years for a full one.
There’s a total of 502 000 registered Albanian emigrants working in Italy at the moment, out of whom 260 000 are fully insured.
Almost yearly, there are around 25 000 Albanians in Italy, who reach their retirement age. The reciprocal acknowledgment of employment years is an issue that affects these citizens’ livelihood.
When asked by Euronews Albania, the Ministry of Diaspora said that our country is currently in the process of reaching an agreement regarding the reciprocal recognition of contributions.
At the moment, Albania has reached agreements regarding this issue with 10 countries including:
Germany
Belgium
Austria
Czech Republic
Luxemburg
Rumania
Turkey
Canada
North Macedonia
Kosovo
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