The number of migrant workers that
Italy should bring in under its so-called "flows decree" depends
on the needs of the labour market and the country's capacity to
integrate them, Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida said
on Monday.
There is no "standard number than can be increased or
decreased", the minister told television programme Agora on Rai
Tre from the Vinitaly fair in Verona.
"One brings labor forces to Italy: the people it can integrate,
the number it needs and that corresponds to those you
(effectively) use and give work to, well-paid work under a
contract, and that can be integrated," he said.
The minister added that economic assistance must be provided to
"weaker countries" so that would-be migrant workers who are not
needed in Italy do not then become irregular migrants.
It must be understood that the "first enemy of legal immigration
is illegal immigration," Lollobrigida said.
The minister also decried the "strange attitude" that considers
migrant workers who enter Italy via the quota system as
"second-class people" on grounds they come to do jobs disdained
by Italians taking the 'citizenship wage' basic income.
"I reject such an uncivilized concept," Lollobrigida said.
On Sunday the minister, a member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's
Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, said young Italians should be
ready to work in the fields picking fruit rather than lounging
on the sofa at home enjoying the 'citizenship wage' that the
government is phasing out.
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