Meloni talks tough on migrants

FE Team | Published: December 06, 2023 22:32:26

ROME, Dec 06 (Reuters): Madou Koulibaly is the new face of an old Italy. The 24-year-old, who arrived in the country from Guinea in 2018, is blazing a trail as Tuscany's first migrant bus driver recruited as part of a drive to fill labour gaps with foreign workers. He was more surprised than anyone.
"I said, a bus? No, I cannot drive a bus," he recalled. "I have never seen an African drive a bus in Italy, especially an African who's arrived on a boat!" Koulibaly is feeling the more welcoming front of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's contrasting immigration plans.
Meloni, who rose to power in October last year on a staunchly nationalist agenda, has captured global headlines with her vows to clamp down on unauthorised arrivals from North Africa with harsher immigration laws, restrictions on sea rescue charities and plans to build migrant reception camps in Albania.
At the same time, though, she's throwing open the door to hundreds of thousands of migrants to work in Italy legally in an effort to plug yawning labour gaps in the country, which has one of the world's oldest and most rapidly shrinking populations.
By 2050, Italy will have almost 5 million fewer people, and more than a third of them will be over 65, national statistics office Istat predicts. Younger blood is badly needed in a host of industries, from construction and tourism to agriculture.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who signed a three-year deal with Tunisia in October that simplified visa and residence permit procedures for up to 4,000 Tunisians per year, says the government is not opposed to immigration per se.