Country Report on Italy

The chapter is part of a survey organized by the Max-Planck Institute of Foreign and International Social Law (Munich, Germany) on the social security systems in the different Member States of the European Union. It analyses the Italian social security system from the legal point of view, describing the most important Constitutional principles and statute laws that characterise it. This analysis concentrates, in particular, on the differences that still exist, in the Italian legal system, between social insurance and social assistance, and on the reasons thereof. Moreover, the chapter examines the position of the individuals towards the social security system in general, and the administrative bodies in charge of providing social security benefits and services in particular.