The political and cultural association Umbrialeft has organised a meeting entitled “Talk about Guaranteed Minimum Income”, that was held on the 10th November 2012 in Spoleto, Italy. The meeting was attended by Sandro Gobetti, coordinator of BIN Italia and Alessandra Massari who is the coordinator of the political party SEL – Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (Left Ecology Freedom) in Spoleto. The event has been coordinated by Stefano Vinti.
In recent years, in Italy, despite the misery of the Italian welfare state and social protection system an innovative and lively debate on these issues has developed. Although Italy is, along with Greece, the only European country lacking a universal income support scheme many scholars have managed to mix the different levels of the debate on basic income in an original and promising way. The proposal of a popular initiative bill on guaranteed income in Italy that has been launched in June 2012 (and that continues to gather great support) will end in December 2012. The objective is to collect at least fifty thousand signatures but much more can be done. Collecting thousands of signatures results in a very important political and social signal both for Italian society and politics. The campaign in favour of guaranteed minimum income represents therefore a great opportunity to boost a new era of social rights.
