Italy is continuing to struggle against the consequences of the EU refugee crisis that has engulfed the continent since 2015. Speaking to Sputnik, Italian scholar and author Daniele Scalea has explained challenges posed by uncontrolled migrant flows and shed light on the positive outcomes of Rome’s migration policy.
While right-wing Italian politicians are being routinely accused of “xenophobia” and “racism”, there are serious reasons for criticising uncontrolled immigration flows and creating a multicultural society, Daniele Scalea, the president of the Italian-based Machiavelli Centre of Political and Strategic Studies (Centro Studi Politici e Strategici Machiavelli), told Sputnik Italy.
Scalea, the author of “Immigrazione. Le ragioni dei populisti” (“Immigration. The reasons of the populists”), emphasised that second- and third- generation immigrants were facing integration problems. According to him, the increase in the amount of foreigners could lead to the formation of ghettos and impossibility of further assimilation.
To tackle the aforementioned challenges the scholar proposed what he called “sustainable immigration”. By this term he understands the situation in which migrants, flowing into the country, do not inflict losses on the people who accept them.”The closure of ports for non-profit organisations transporting migrants has brought obvious benefits”, Scalea said. “In the first three months of 2019, the number of migrant landings decreased by almost 100 percent compared with the corresponding periods in 2017 and 2018”.
The Italian scholar suggested that the UN and EU criticism towards Rome has largely been triggered by left-wing politicians and media pundits.
“The theme of ‘racially hostile aggression’ is actively circulated by foreign media with journalists writing about ‘the repressive measures of the Italian government towards migrants'”, he said. “Unfortunately, since foreigners cannot read news in Italian they fall prey to false stereotypes about the growth of xenophobia and racism in Italy”.