Immigration will be the topic that more than any other will condition the next elections. So, less than a month before the polls, let's see what the positions of the main political forces are. Leafing through the electoral programmes, it is immediately evident that everyone, absolutely everyone, focuses more on vague and unrealistic promises than on proposals. But above all, the Italians lack a discourse of truth. An epochal phenomenon such as that of immigration cannot be stopped, only governed. So the only real proposal, which nobody makes, however, is how to make a problem that today is pathological physiological.
The most fashionable refrain is "let's help them at home" from the League. Declined in a less rude way by Forza Italia, which evokes a new Marshall Plan, and the 5 Star Movement which speaks generically of "economic aid to developing countries" in line with the Democratic Party. But are we really sure that by helping them at home the flows will stop? No, because as an article by West "it is not true that development is able, always and in any case, to curb immigration". And then the Marshall Plan, a grandiose and very successful formula that refers to the last century, belongs to another era. Also who should finance it, Italy or the European Union? Nobody explains it, but given Europe's ambiguities it will be difficult to actively involve it. And the last few governments have already experienced it.
Another topic that holds the table is that of repatriations. The League proposes the "forced return to the countries of origin for those who are illegal". On the same line Forza Italia. In a recent interview, Berlusconi said verbatim: “In Italy there are at least 630 migrants of which only 5%, that is 30, has the right to remain as refugees, that is, fled from war and death. The other 600 are a social bomb ready to explode, because they live on expedients and crimes". A true propaganda genius. Meanwhile, the expulsion of a number of people equal to twice the population of a city like Catania is unrealistic because it cannot be achieved. And then because it overlooks a problem that is not so small: the Italian penal code. It is good to remember that since Bossi-Fini introduced the crime of clandestine immigration, and that we have three degrees of judgement, promising the expulsion of 600 immigrants becomes political fiction. The position of the Democratic Party is more nuanced, which by continuing along the Minniti line aims at reducing landings by favoring agreements with the states of departure and transit. While the M5s aims at the "zero landings" goal, but without providing the necessary coordinates.
And then there is the Dublin issue, i.e. the asylum regulation. According to which the application must be presented in the State where the applicant entered the European Union. All parties and movements are in favor of a review, starting with the centre-right, which with Salvini threatens barricades in Europe. But Italy signed that regulation in 2003 because at the time the "threat" concerned Germany, with immigration from the East. After 15 years the situation has reversed, and now the brakes on the revision are, paradoxically, precisely those Eastern European countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia gathered in the Visegrad Group). The same states that also refuse to relocate refugees.
Relocation that many invoke, starting from the 5 Stars which propose the obligation for all EU countries and the extension to economic immigrants. The Democratic Party is also pushing for the redistribution of asylum seekers, but its governments have already come to terms with the stalemate created by Eastern countries. Silence from Lega and Forza Italia, perhaps to avoid embarrassments with the many allies they have on the Visegrad front.
Reception, this stranger. Talking about it succinctly is the Democratic Party which limits itself to repeating the obligation to save human lives at sea and welcome those fleeing wars and persecutions. The 5 Star Movement instead calls for "legal and safe ways of accessing the EU", a "review" of the reception system and the speeding up of the examination of asylum requests. Sentences made that don't commit anyone. Liberi e Uguali, on the other hand, goes a little further by proposing a "rigorous, widespread and integrated" reception system. Three adjectives that can be shared as long as you know how to move from good intentions to daily practices. A possibility that seems to recede by reading further on that the most important objective of the electoral cartel of the left is "overcoming the extraordinary management that has generated too many scandals and distortions". Pretending to forget that in Italy to change the way the bureaucracy operates, words are of little use.
Proof that people continue to lie to voters about immigration the much-vaunted slogan of the League is enough: "Let's close the borders!". Which ones, those to the north with European countries or those to the south with the Mediterranean Sea?
