Italy’s Giorgia Meloni opens door to more workers from outside EU

Get Free Italian Politics Updates

we will send you one myFT Daily Digest Latest Email Rounding italian politics News every morning.

Italy’s right-wing coalition plans to sharply increase the number of foreign workers from outside the EU while continuing a crackdown on irregular migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government said this week it would issue 425,000 work permits to non-EU citizens between this year and 2025, which Rome called part of its plan to boost legal immigration to fill gaps in the labor market. told.

The announcement followed repeated complaints from employers in various industries, including construction and tourism, that they were facing severe difficulties finding workers, as Italy’s economy recovers from the blow of the pandemic.

The Bank of Italy also warned that a severe shortage of skilled workers, including in construction and IT, is jeopardizing Italy’s ability to meet an ambitious €200 billion EU-funded post-pandemic recovery plan.

Under its new enhanced quota system, Rome plans to gradually increase the number of new worker permits granted annually to 165,000 in 2025, as well as expand the categories of jobs that can be created. Foreign workers from outside the EU will be eligible.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy granted fewer than 31,000 work permits per year to migrant workers from outside the EU.

This year, Rome plans to award an additional 40,000 permits to the 82,705 already in operation.

The Meloni government said the quota was set after talks with employers and unions to assess the real needs of the economy.

The government wanted to help employers fill vacancies, taking into account “the ability of foreign workers to welcome and integrate into local communities”.

However, given its leaders’ historical hostility towards foreign migrant workers, opposition politicians accused the right-wing coalition of hypocrisy.

Both Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, and his political ally Matteo Salvini of the far-right League have long spoken out against non-European immigrants to Italy, seeing them as an existential threat to the country, its people and culture. is shown.

“The right-wing government has surrendered,” Laura Boldrini, a member of the center-left Democratic Party, tweeted on Friday after the new quotas were announced. “It is a very high rate. , , It’s a bitter dose of reality for those who have built their political careers on immigration as a threat to national security.”

Boldrini said right-wing parties criticized previous proposals by the center to increase legal immigration, calling it “ethnic substitution” and an “invasion of migrants”.

Since coming to power, Meloni’s government has tried to reduce the number of irregular migrants, by cracking down on humanitarian groups rescuing people at sea.

Meloni was also heavily criticized in late February, when a fragile wooden boat carrying some 180 potential refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and elsewhere broke down meters off the Italian coast, killing many. At least 94 people had drowned, including women and young children.

The Italian government has also pressed the EU to take stronger joint action to protect Europe’s external borders, including promoting deals with North African countries to curb departures and facilitate repatriations.

Yet since the start of the year, almost 70,000 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in Italy by boat, compared with fewer than 31,000 irregular arrivals in the same period last year.

In its statement, Rome said some permits for workers in agriculture and tourism would be reserved for workers from countries that signed the agreement to combat irregular migration.

Among the skilled workers Italy will welcome are electricians, plumbers, construction workers, nurses, bus drivers, hotel workers, mechanics and fishermen.

Additional reporting by Giuliana Riccozzi in Rome