Not just a decree on immigration flows. Immigration as a mirror of Italian changes

Yesterday's Council of Ministers has something to do with it, of course. But it also has something to do with the European posture, it also has something to do with the balance between the parties, it has something to do with the change that we don't want to see, it has something to do with the embarrassment that we don't want to study, it has something to do with the future that we don't want to understand. Think about it, just for a moment. What we are trying to describe to you today is like a mirror. It is the mirror of what the left is unable to be, and this is evident, but it is also the mirror of what the right is, but is unable to claim. It is the mirror of what the left should be, if you think about it for a moment, but it is also the mirror of what the right has become, but which by necessity does not have the courage to fully recognize. And finally it is also the mirror of another phenomenon that every now and then surfaces, forcefully, in the public debate, and which concerns everything that every day the Italian left chooses, without a fight, to give to the right, even when the issues are anything but right-wing. The theme we are referring to today is not a theme like any other, but one of the most divisive, most traumatic, most dramatic themes of contemporary democracies: immigration , of course.

In Europe, you know, immigration has become the political frontier on which far-right and mainstream parties have been clashing for years. In America, you have seen, immigration has become the traumatic frontier on which the police forces that answer to Trump and those that answer to the governor of California are clashing, head-on. And seeking solutions to try to defuse the conflict is a mission considered prohibitive. The interesting element regarding Italy - the Italy theoretically led by xenophobic sovereignists, at least that is how many politicians who are in opposition describe them - is that since the beginning of the legislature, the government in office on immigration issues has managed to put in place a third way based on three pillars: an agreement with Europe, non-sovereignist management of borders, and a bet on regular flows. The government's strategy has been tainted by the Albanian model, which we will return to in a few lines, but net of the Albanian mess, the interesting element regarding the approach chosen by Meloni & Co. on immigration issues is the opposite of that expressed in the election campaign. In this scheme, Europe is an ally, not an enemy. In this scheme, borders can be governed, and there is no point in threatening to close them. In this scheme, the idea that having more immigrants in Italy could be a problem for Italian workers, "Italians first", is nonsense, it is not an absolute truth and indeed it is a thesis that risks hitting the interests of our country. Yesterday, as you know, in the Council of Ministers, the government, without strongly demanding it, put another piece in place to strengthen the third pillar, the one relating to entries reserved for regular migrants, and it did so by creating a new flows decree , which adds to what the government had already done two years ago: 500 thousand entries planned, between 2026 and 2028, which are added to the 452 thousand that had already been planned between 2023 and 2025. No Italian government, in recent history, has ever planned such a high number of regular entries for work reasons as those envisaged by the Meloni government.

The other two elements that are part of the three surprisingly anti-populist and mainstream pillars of the Meloni government on immigration are found in Europe. And they are found within a European treaty validated by the previous Commission. You know the treaty's name: "Pact on Migration and Asylum". The main purpose of the treaty is what you may remember: to try to make a qualitative leap in the policies of the European Union on migration, asylum, border management, solidarity and integration. And the basic idea behind the treaty is, as it says, to create a legal framework useful for balancing solidarity and responsibility among member states, introducing mandatory solidarity among states (relocations, financial contributions, technical support), establishing a centralized annual assessment of migration flows, defining a single repatriation system, strengthening relations with third countries for readmissions and humanitarian protection, setting binding minimum standards on reception, promoting early integration and the protection of unaccompanied minors, providing free legal assistance, reforming the Dublin system, introducing an independent mechanism for monitoring fundamental rights and imposing mandatory contingency plans (if the Albanian model had been implemented by Italy at the time of the operational implementation of the Pact, in mid-2026, there would have been no legal conflict, given that the Pact on Migration and Asylum provides for the possibility of using third countries to combat irregular immigration). The reason why talking about this treaty is important, on the day in which the Italian government on immigration takes another step away from populism, is linked to a news item totally ignored by the newspapers.

Two weeks ago, the European Commission returned to take stock of the treaty, whose operational implementation is expected by mid-2026, and in taking stock it focused on some important elements, explaining the crucial steps. The member states, it was said in the report that accompanied the work related to the implementation of the treaty, will no longer be able to avoid the duty to support countries under migratory pressure and will have to participate in the permanent solidarity mechanism, with relocations, financial contributions or operational support. It was added that uniform procedural and legal standards are imposed on the member states, which should reduce the margin of national discretion in reception, in the examination of asylum applications and in expulsions. Cooperation with countries of origin and transit will be managed in a European key, and this will take away full control of migration diplomacy from the states. In short: more Europe, less sovereignism. The Pact on Migration and Asylum is exactly the perfect mirror of the phenomenon from which we started for many reasons. The most obvious reason is that, among the major Italian parties, the only one to have signed that pact, together with Forza Italia, was Fratelli d'Italia. The less obvious reason is that, among the major socialist parties in Europe, the only one not to have signed that pact, exactly like the M5s, like the Lega, was the Partito Democratico, which when the treaty arrived in the Chamber, in the last European legislature, chose not to vote in favor. The paradox, as is evident, is twofold and clear. The Pact on Migration and Asylum, transforming immigration from a national competence into a common policy, with binding rules, obligations of solidarity and centralized control, while creating a more rigid system of control of European borders, has its own trait of explicit anti-sovereignty, as is ultimately the choice to further tighten the mesh of the flows decree. The Italian left, which has chosen to gift the Europeanist mainstream to Giorgia Meloni on many fronts, does not feel represented by that Pact because it considers any form of government of borders, of boundaries, and any attempt to fight the policy of indiscriminate reception, as a right-wing idea . And so it has succeeded in the miracle of gifting the right every form of politics aimed at fighting against irregular immigration. On the other hand, the Italian right, having for years fed among its voters the idea of ​​having to manage every immigration-related issue with the key of building walls, with the key of fighting against Europe, as well as with the key of first the Italian and then the foreigner, despite having chosen to be on the side of the centrist, anti-Le Penist, mainstream on immigration in Europe, does not have the courage to fully claim its choice, because doing so would mean having to admit that the only way to fight illegal immigration is not to stop immigration but to govern it, even at the cost of handing over to Europe a pinch of our sovereignty, in the name of common responsibility. The result of these paradoxes, of these short circuits, of these embarrassments – embarrassments that to a certain extent will be repeated in the next few hours when the government will be called to defend its anti-populist choice made on the immigration decree – offers a clear photograph of some important balances that exist today in Italy between the political parties. With a left that after having done much to transform some simply common sense policies into right-wing policies has given the right the opportunity to play the part of the pro-European force despite the many skeletons in the closet of the sovereignists, which prevent the non-Le Penist right from fully claiming its own pro-European turn. In America, and in much of Europe, immigration is the terrain on which wars of civilization are fought. In Italy, the management of immigration offers many food for thought, but perhaps the most counterintuitive, and important, is linked to everything that immigration reflects on the identity of the parties and coalitions: a mirror of what the left fails to be, but it is also a mirror of what the right is, but simply fails to claim.

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