What follows is taken from the speech at the debate “Two elections, one crisis. The Topic of Migration in the US and European Elections“, co-hosted by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and the Machiavelli Center in Budapest on May 9, 2024.
Daniele Scalea, president of the Machiavelli Center, speaks at the MCC in Budapest (May 9, 2024)
Italy from land of emigration to country of immigration
The history of immigration in Italy is more recent than in most Western European countries. Until the early 1970s, in fact, Italy was a country of emigration, both within and outside Europe. It is estimated that those having at least partially Italian origins are 5 percent of the current inhabitants of the United States, 8 percent of France, 15 percent of Brazil and even 70 percent of Argentina.
Since the 1970s, Italy has become a country of immigration, but for several years with relatively low numbers. The first massive inflows of immigrants came in the 1990s, from Eastern Europe and especially Albania, due to the socio-economic collapse the latter experienced in that decade. It is important to note that during that phase, both right-wing and left-wing governments attempted to tackle illegal immigration. In fact, at the beginning of our century, only 1 to 2 percent of Italy's population was foreign born.
Illegal arrivals continued in the following years, in sizes ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 per year. When a peak of 35,000 (a level that would be considered very low today) was recorded in 2008, this was perceived as alarming by the public. The government then in office, headed by Silvio Berlusconi, intervened by striking deals with Libya and implementing naval push-backs - a strategy similar to what leftist governments had practiced in the 1990s against the flows of Albanians.
2011-12: the turning point
The turning point came in 2011. On the one hand, Bulgaria and Romania joined the Schengen area, leading to a significant inflow of mainly Romanians into Italy: today Romanians constitute the largest foreign component in the peninsula. While Romanians generally integrated quickly into Italian society, there were among them a significant number of Gypsies, who still live in camps and support themselves through begging or theft. Their social impact was therefore very much felt - and in a negative way.
The same year saw the Arab uprisings and the collapse of Libya, caused by the uprising of Islamists and others backed by NATO countries. As a result of this, disappeared that filter that Gaddafi had guaranteed, both directly under precise agreements with Italy and indirectly by absorbing a large share of immigrants into his country, which was very prosperous by African standards. Libya fell into the hands of militias and criminals who organized and exploited illegal departures to Italy. A few months later, in 2012, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy's naval push-backs, finding them incompatible with the right of illegal immigrants to apply for asylum.
So Italy suddenly found itself deprived of its two main tools for defending its borders. Meanwhile, the Berlusconi government fell and, in 2013, a leftist one took its place. The latter deployed the Navy, but not to defend the borders, but to pick up migrants at sea and bring them to Italy. When the naval mission ended, the NGOs picked up the baton, stationing their ships off the Libyan coast. At this stage, illegal landings reached levels of 150-180,000 a year, prompting even the leftist government to intervene, through an agreement with the Libyan coast guard.
Current situation
However, a real breakthrough came only after the 2018 elections. On the wave of popular discontent especially with the migration crisis, a new government was formed with Matteo Salvini as minister of the interior. By means of several measures Salvini managed to almost completely stop the landings. Salvini lost his post in 2019, however, and after a pause due to Covid-19, arrivals resumed in 2022, despite the right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni. In 2022 there were 100,000 arrivals and in 2023 as many as 160,000, although so far this year a decrease is being recorded.
It is important to notice that immigration to Italy is now mainly non-European, particularly from Arab countries, Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Currently, 9 percent of Italy's population is made up of foreigners. However, it must be considered that Italy is among the European nations with the highest number of naturalizations. Drawing on migration and demographic projections, detailed in a 2019 book (recently translated and published in Hungary as well), I estimated that by 2065 more than 40 percent of Italy's population will be made up of foreigners or second- and third-generation immigrants.
Laws
Precisely because of the phenomenon's novelty, immigration to Italy remained almost entirely unregulated until 1990. Law 39/90, aka the “Martelli Law,” introduced quantitative programming of immigrant influx, thus institutionalizing the “legal” channel for moving to Italy. At the same time, it also provided the means by which illegal flows would be fuelled, namely the abuse of the right to asylum. Italy had in fact acceded to the 1951 Geneva Convention with a “geographic reservation,” under which it was committed to accepting as refugees only people from the European continent. Socialist Claudio Martelli cancelled this reservation, opening the doors to asylum seekers from all over the world (currently, only 1 in 10 applicants actually turns out to be entitled to refugee status).
In 1998 the first comprehensive immigration bill, Law 40/1998 or “Turco-Napolitano Act” was passed: on the one hand it expanded the influx of non-EU workers and guaranteed them a path to citizenship, and on the other it established centers in which to detain and identify illegal immigrants before deporting them. In 2002, Law 189/2002 or the “Bossi-Fini Act” applied some correctives, shortening residence permits and trying to make deportation policies more effective. In 2008, the center-right government introduced the crime (without prison sentences) of illegal immigration and also the aggravating circumstance of illegality in criminal trials, but the latter measure was struck down by the Constitutional Court.
Over the past quarter century, migration policies have been shaped more by European Union directives than by laws enacted by Parliament. Indeed, the EU passed a series of directives between 2005 and 2008 that imposed minimum standards in favor of asylum seekers, abolished the detention of applicants, suspended expulsions in the event of an appeal against denial of protection, and expanded the possibility of family reunification to non-refugees.
A situation that is out of control
By now, immigration in Italy is out of control. This is not a catch-phrase or an empirical observation; it is a reality that can be inferred from data observation: illegal entries exceed legal ones.
In 2016 and 2017, the Flows Decrees provided, net of conversions of residence permits to people already in the country, for the legal entry of 17-18,000 non-EU workers a year. Those years, however, the illegal immigrants landed were 180,000 and 120,000, respectively. If in 2018 and 2019, legally authorized entries (30,000) exceeded the numbers of illegal ones, today the situation is worrying again. This is despite the fact that the latest Flows Decrees have greatly raised the quota of non-European workers to be admitted.
Last year, 2023, the flow decree stipulated to take in 136,000 non-EU workers, 53,000 of whom were non-seasonal. However, the landings, as already seen, brought almost 160,000 illegal immigrants to our shores. The vertical growth in the Flows Decrees, which plans to reach 165,000 legal admissions in 2025, is nevertheless struggling to keep pace with illegal arrivals.
Unfortunately, our migration policy is largely decided by smugglers, NGOs or other hostile actors. Family reunifications do the rest: apart from the Covid-19 interlude, their number is consistently above 100,000 a year.
Anachronistic standards
The situation is not only the result of precise political (and ideological) choices in favor of immigration and “multiculturalism.” Italy is also suffering from the fact that it is applying norms - those on the right to asylum - formulated almost a century ago, in a completely different environment. At the time, it was unimaginable to see millions of Africans or Asians embarking on inter-continental journeys to migrate to Europe. Those regulations were designed to facilitate the intake of a few isolated dissidents and political persecuted, or at any rate groups of people fleeing communist regimes - people who were European, close to our culture and therefore easy to integrate.
Refugee protection regulations are constantly abused by “economic” migrants, who exploit them to succeed in staying in Italy. In 2022, 85,000 asylum applications were filed in Italy, in 2023 135,000. Yet, of the applications processed during 2023, less than 5,000 applicants were recognized as refugees (another 16,000 or so received subsidiary or special protection, while more than 20,000 were rejected).
We must recognize the new context - geopolitical and technological - in which we live and adapt the norms - national, European and international - to the changed reality. Otherwise, European governments, including Italy's, will fail to govern the phenomenon but will be overwhelmed by illegal migration flows.
[foto: Alessandro Scarcella CC 3.0 sa by]
Founder and President of Centro Studi Machiavelli. A graduate in History (University of Milan) and Ph.D. in Political Studies (Sapienza University), he teaches “History and Doctrine of Jihadism” at Marconi University and “Geopolitics of the Middle East” at Cusano University, where he has also taught on Islamic extremism in the past.
From 2018 to 2019, he served as Special Advisor on Immigration and Terrorism to Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Guglielmo Picchi; he later served as head of the technical secretariat of the President of the Parliamentary Delegation to the Central European Initiative (CEI).
Author of several books, including Immigration: the reasons of populists, which has also been translated into Hungarian.
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