Ending. See the beginning in "Zagranitsa" No. 23
In both its purpose and its practical application, the Martelli law was by no means permissive in nature: channels for legal immigration remained extremely narrow; primary attention was paid to regulating entry and stay in the country; the list of states whose citizens required a visa to enter Italy was expanded; requests for extension of residence permits were considered with particular strictness. As a result, many immigrants who had initially formalized their stay in Italy effectively lost the opportunity to remain in the country legally. Statistical data show that the number of issued residence permits decreased from 649 thousand at the beginning of 1992 to 589 thousand as of January 1, 1993.
This policy was conditioned not only by public pressure, which was extremely concerned about the mass landing of Albanian refugees on the coast of Apulia in 1991, but also by the need to coordinate actions with other European Union countries. As is known, in June 1990 Italy joined the Schengen Agreement, which established clear conditions for crossing the external borders of the European Union and at the same time eliminated borders between EU member states.
Meanwhile, law No. 39 did not allow Italy to fully regulate migration flows: it did not pay due attention to the processes of immigrant integration, essentially limiting itself to establishing initial reception centers; as for combating illegal immigration, which the European partners insisted on, seeing Italy as a vulnerable place in the Union, it did not ensure this—partly due to the lack of a necessary legal basis that would allow the expulsion of identified illegal immigrants.
An attempt to partially fill the gaps in current legislation was made by decree No. 489 of 1995, known as the "Dini decree." It included norms regulating immigration flows and seasonal work of foreigners from non-EU states, rules for their entry into the country and stay on its territory, conditions for forced deportation, and the procedure for family reunification. In addition, some changes in social policy towards immigrants and new legalization rules were provided.
The "Dini decree" never became law: in 1996, after five unsuccessful attempts to pass it through parliament, a bill was finally adopted that consisted of a single article and consolidated the rights of immigrants who had submitted the documents necessary for legalization within the time limits provided by the first law. Overall, the third law was more restrictive in nature than the previous ones, including the 1986 law, which applied only to citizens of non-EU states.
Indeed, under the new law, a residence permit was granted—besides working immigrants (both those who already had a workplace and those who found an employer willing to take them) and their family members—only to those unemployed who could document that they had worked for at least four months in the last year. In addition, the new law imposed stricter requirements on employers. The number of legalization requests submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs after the new law entered into force was about 260 thousand, and 246 thousand were granted, with more than half of all requests coming from three regions: Lazio (more than 21%), Lombardy (almost 21%), and Campania (12%). If results are classified by the countries of origin of the applicants, then 40% were Africans, among whom, as before, people from North Africa predominated (25% of the total). The number of arrivals from Asian countries also remained high (25.5%). As for immigrants from Central Europe, their share increased threefold (from 7.5% after the adoption of the first law to 25%), and the share of Latin Americans doubled (from 4.5% to 9%).
After a broad parliamentary discussion that unfolded in 1998, a new immigration law was adopted (No. 40, or the so-called "Turco-Napolitano law"), which attempted to regulate the situation in a more comprehensive manner. The norms introduced by this law (reflected in the consolidated text of laws approved in July of that year, as well as in the implementing regulation issued in August 1999) represent the first attempt at a comprehensive solution to the problem of immigration in Italian society. For the first time, a law of this kind sought, among other things, to give clear outlines to a single model on the basis of which various aspects and stages of the migration process could be regulated.
This model can be characterized as "rational integration" (in a certain sense, the same concept formed the basis of the Martelli law). It includes four elements and provides for a strategy of indirect influence on immigrants with the aim of integrating them into Italian society. The first element is the influence of the state, which proceeds from the principle of security and uses all measures provided for by legislation to prevent illegal entry into Italy, deport illegal immigrants, and fight crime. The second element is ensuring a minimum level of integration for those who have not received a residence permit, i.e., respect for human rights, especially the rights to medical care and the protection of children. The third element is ensuring for immigrants who have received a residence permit the fullest possible integration, the maximum expansion of their social rights. Finally, the fourth element is interaction between society and immigrants, based on the principles of pluralism and benevolence, presupposing respect for cultural and religious distinctiveness.
The new law provided clear criteria for planning immigration. At the same time, it was decided to give part of the quota allocated for the first year of its operation to immigrants already living in Italy. Initially, it was planned to issue about 38 thousand residence permits, but in fact significantly more applications were submitted. At some point - partly due to the peculiarities of the procedure itself, which allowed preliminary registration and only later submission of the necessary documents - it was suggested that the number of applications would exceed 400 thousand (thereby, by the way, refuting the thesis that a complicated procedure could deter applicants). In the end, however, only 251 thousand applications were submitted, and almost all of them were granted.
Comparing the regions of origin of applicants, one can single out Central and Eastern Europe, whose share increased during the migration amnesties and reached 37%. As for the national composition of those who legalized their status, Albanians predominated (18%), followed by Moroccans (11%), Romanians (11%), Chinese (7.7%), and Senegalese (4.9%). It is worth noting that in some immigrant communities, especially among people from Central and Eastern Europe and Africa, the number of those who legalized their status was particularly high. This testifies to the persistence of a steady influx of illegal migrants (at least in absolute terms). At the same time, some communities (for example, Filipinos and Peruvians), whose share had previously been quite noticeable, dropped out of the top ten “leaders” - possibly because in 1996-1998 there was no appreciable increase in illegal immigration among them.
At the end of the past decade, the political discussion provoked by the immigration problem became even more acute. The center-right parties constantly proposed making adjustments to the “Turco-Napolitano law” or abolishing it altogether. Then, having obtained a majority in parliament, the center-right formed a government and approved new laws regulating migration policy. Law No. 189 of July 2002, known as the “Bossi-Fini law”, amended the consolidated text of the 1998 law.
In accordance with the election program of the “House of Freedoms” bloc, the new law was primarily aimed at “achieving effective regulation of migration flows and more effectively combating illegal immigration”. The second task was undoubtedly considered the main one, although the law - contrary to the original intent - provided for the issuance of residence permits to persons illegally working as domestic servants or caring for the elderly and sick. These measures were supplemented by a decree adopted in September of the same year, which defined the conditions for issuing residence permits for other categories of workers who arrived in Italy from non-EU countries.
The new laws, on the basis of which about 650 thousand people legalized their status (out of more than 700 thousand who submitted applications), turned out to be, apparently, much more effective than the previous ones. Their most noticeable consequence was a sharp increase in the number of legalized immigrants from the states of Central and Eastern Europe, whose share reached 59%. In particular, more than a third of applications were submitted by citizens of Romania (20.4%) and Ukraine (15.2%). The shares of Albanians (7.7%), Poles (4.9%), and Moldovans (4.4%) also turned out to be high. Thus, among recently arrived immigrants in Italy, the position of people from the eastern part of the European continent has strengthened; new colors have also appeared: they were introduced by newcomers from countries that were previously practically not represented in the colorful picture of Italian immigration.
In recent years, immigrants have become an increasingly significant element of Italian society. Their number has grown considerably, they have settled in various regions of the country, the demographic and family structure of many national communities has now approached a natural one, and indeed the presence of immigrants in Italian cities has become more noticeable. An important factor in this evolution, which was accompanied, as we have seen, by the introduction of numerous laws and rules normalizing the situation of immigrants, was the consistent expansion of the national labor market and the increase in its attractiveness compared to other countries.
Indeed, already in the late 1980s, migration processes accelerated significantly, as they were spurred on by high demand for foreign labor. In many industrial areas of Central and Northern Italy, rapid economic growth led to the depletion of local labor resources, which were already declining under the influence of objective demographic trends. As a result, enterprises were forced to hire immigrants, and the pull factors in the leading sectors of the national economy became particularly strong. This, along with other reasons, contributed to the movement of immigrants within Italy itself from south to north, as well as to their changing jobs: they began to prefer legal and stable income to shadow and temporary employment.
Another important sector of the economy where immigrants find employment remains work as domestic servants, including care for the elderly and the sick. Already in the 1970s, Italian women were increasingly less willing to do such work, primarily its least prestigious types, and the social security system (welfare) completely ceased to meet the real requirements of Italian families: this became especially noticeable during the period when, on the one hand, women's employment increased, and on the other, the number of elderly people in need of care grew. The demand for labor in this sector explains both the emergence of corresponding migration flows, and their rapid growth, and the scale they have acquired today.
Indeed, almost half of the applications for legalization submitted after the adoption of the last law (334,000 in total) were filed by persons employed in the domestic sector. Undoubtedly, in recent years this sector of economic activity has become particularly attractive. Apparently, the number of jobs in the care of the sick and elderly and in household services (especially for women) will continue to grow rapidly due to the general aging of the population.
Another important aspect of the phenomenon in question is the use of unskilled immigrant labor, especially in areas of employment that are unattractive to Italians. In this respect, the growing Italian economy differs little from the economies of other developed countries. In some of its sectors, it has not been possible to carry out modernization that would significantly reduce costs, and at the same time move production outside the country, so that the fastest and most effective way to reduce costs is to cut social guarantees and wages; entrepreneurs prefer to hire illegal immigrants who are ready to work without a contract or insurance.
Overall, the factors attracting immigrants to Italy are sectoral and local in nature. Currently, they are determined not by general quantitative disproportions in the country's economic system, but by regional imbalances between the supply and demand of labor – at times quite acute and caused by the process of territorial segmentation of the labor market and differentiation of its various sectors.
In this respect, Italy presents a very interesting example of uneven regional and sectoral development, differing from other countries. It is not only about the well-known opposition between the South and the North, or the equally well-known concept of the Three Italies, but also about the uneven development of not-so-large regions. In Italy, especially in its southern and central parts, economic differentiation is visible even at the level of small territorial units: even neighboring areas can have a clearly defined production specialization. Immigration in these regions also proceeds differently, taking on one or another character depending on the corresponding pull factors. This is why so many immigration models coexist in Italy, and the process of political resolution of this issue over the past 20 years has been so difficult and, above all, has repeatedly required a return to attempts to legalize illegal migrants.
Corrado Bonifaci, Salvatore Strozza.
Translation by Kirill Chekalov,
journal «Otechestvennye zapiski».