Italy/ 4.2 Specific policy issues and recent debates  

4.2.4 Cultural diversity and inclusion policies

Cultural minorities have become a very hot issue in Italy in relatively recent times. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between autochthonous minorities, established in Italy centuries ago, and eterochthonous minorities: i.e. the constantly growing number of migrants from Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

On the one hand, the rights of the autochthonous, officially recognised cultural minorities (Germans and Ladins in the province of Bolzano, Slovenians and Croatians in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Greeks and Albanians in Southern Italy and Sicily, Catalans in Sardinia) have been well safeguarded through national and regional legislation since the post-war period (most notably by Law 482/1999), and guaranteed by the 1947 Constitution, Article 6 (see chapter 4.2.5). They all enjoy citizen status and the related civic and cultural rights, with a particular focus on language matters. The only exception to this rule is represented by the Roma community, still significantly segregated, although 70 000 out of the 160 000 Roma and Sinti reckoned to be living in Italy enjoy citizen status. Following new migrations from Rumania and the Balkans since the late 1990s, and after Rumania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, this community has known an ever sharper increase in number.  

As for the cultural integration of new migrant communities, Italy started to deal with the issue of developing a sound policy framework for immigration and integration only recently by comparison with other EU countries. In fact, immigration from the less developed areas of the world is a relatively new phenomenon in our country. It gradually started in the 1970s to gain momentum in the following decades, with the number of regular foreign residents virtually doubling every 10 years, and knowing a further increase after 2000 (although since 2010 migratory flows started to slow down for the first time in years, mainly due to the economic crisis).

According to the latest data, based on residence permits issued by the Ministry of the Interior, foreign residents in Italy (including those awaiting registration) amounted to 4 961 000 at the beginning of 2011; if we then consider the estimated number of illegal immigrants, the actual amount of the migrant population in Italy could be as high as 5 403 000, accounting for around 7.5% of the total Italian population (Istat - Fondazione ISMU, 2011).

Figure 1:    Foreign residents with a regular residence permit, years 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2011*

Sources:    Fondazione Ismu elaboration on data by ISTAT 2011.
*                 January 1st, 2011.

This sharp increase over the years is mostly due to our country's rapidly ageing population and the consequent demand for immigrant labour force, as well as to Italy's geographical position at the crossroads between the African and the Asian continent, and at the doorstep of Eastern Europe. In fact, immigration from the latter has grown exponentially, so much so that, at the end of 2009, the European component of Italy's foreign population accounted for 53.6%, followed by Africa (22%), Asia (16.2%) and America (8.1%) (source: Caritas Migrantes, estimate on various sources, 2010).

Table 2 ranks in absolute and percentage terms the ten most represented nationalities of immigrants with a regular residence permit at the beginning of 2011.

Table 2:     Foreign residents with a regular residence permit: most represented nationalities, 2011*

Source:     Fondazione Ismu elaboration on data by ISTAT, 2011.
*                 1 January 2011.

As shown in the Table, Rumanians are by far the biggest immigrant community living in Italy, with a staggering increase from 342 000 at the end of 2006 to 969 000 at the end of 2010. Moroccans, who arrived in Italy with the first migratory waves in the late 1970s, have gradually lost their relative weight in the overall migrant population, like other "historical" communities such as the Filipinos and the Senegalese. On the other hand, the Chinese community has known a significant increase in the past decade. Finally, the highest percentage of foreigners coming from Latin America is of Ecuadorian and Peruvian origin, and is especially settled in Northern Italy.

The most recent evolution in the socio-demographic makeup of Italy's population is particularly evident in schools: according to Caritas Migrantes (2011), foreign students now account for around 7.9% of the overall school population.

Table 3:     Foreign students in the Italian school: 2000-2011

Sources:    Fondazione ISMU elaboration on data by the Ministry of Education, 2010; Caritas Migrantes, 2011.

The impact of this constantly growing migratory wave on the Italian society cannot be fully understood without taking into account the huge diaspora experienced by our own country mainly between the late 19th and early 20th century, and once again in the immediate aftermath of WW2 – estimated today at around 60 million people of Italian origin scattered in five continents. This abrupt shift from being a country of emigration to becoming a country of immigration took Italy by surprise: unlike post-colonial countries such as Great Britain, France and the Netherlands, our nation had first to deal with emergency issues such as welcoming and assisting the growing wave of newcomers, and establishing a legal framework to regulate this new phenomenon. In fact, legislation dealing with immigration adopted since the 1990s may be described as a work in progress, constantly lurching from integration to expulsion, and mainly subject to the shifting political viewpoints of the state and local governments.

Law 39/1990 was the first piece of legislation to deal with the issue of integrating the newcomers, besides giving amnesty to immigrants who had arrived in Italy before 1989, and trying to regulate further access to the country. Subsequently, while the migratory influx coming from the Balkans gained further momentum, Leg. Decree 286/1998, adopted by the centre left government, put immigration on a more legal footing, by also providing entitlements to basic social services (in particular the right to education, social security, and national healthcare services). Law 189/2002, on the other hand, was adopted by Berlusconi's government during a time when the influx of illegal migrants grew to inexorable levels and xenophobic pressures came from the Northern League (one of the political parties forming Berlusconi's centre right coalition); the new law tightened border controls, made access to Italian citizenship more difficult, and introduced a highly restrictive immigration regime, as well as easier expulsion procedures.

With the centre-left coalition shortly back in power (2006-2008), a shift in policy occurred once again, the integration of "new minorities" ranking high among political priorities. A draft law was endorsed to halve the minimum required length of legal residence in Italy in order to apply for citizenship, introduce ius soli for foreign children born in Italy, and envisage the right for regular immigrants to vote in administrative elections.

All these plans were dropped when Berlusconi's right-wing coalition once again won the election in spring 2008 partly by promising to crack down on crime and immigration. After a "security package" passed shortly after the elections, tough new measures to fight illegal immigration and crime became law in Italy in July 2009 (Law 94/2009). The law, which makes illegal immigration a crime punishable with a fine of up to 10 000 EUR and raises to six months the amount of time that illegal migrants can be detained in holding centres before repatriation, also provides for higher taxes (e.g. to obtain the residence permit), and a more difficult access to basic social services for legal migrants.

Law 94/2009 was only the latest of a series of measures by the Berlusconi government to fight illegal immigration. As part of a pact signed in 2009 with Moammar Gadhafi, Italy began returning migrants intercepted in international waters back to Libya – a policy criticised by the European Commission, along with the U.N. and Human Rights Watch. The policy temporarily worked in reducing the number of boat arrivals in Italy (in 2008, before it went into effect, about 36 000 migrants arrived illegally; by 2009 the number had fallen to 9 500, and in 2010 to 4 300, according to UNHCR), but the current uprisings in North African countries are reversing the situation.

It has been mostly left to human rights lobbyists and Catholic organisations to point out that most illegal immigrants are employed in Italian households as cleaners and carers of the elderly. The Catholic Church has also repeatedly criticized the measures envisaged by Law 94/2009, which civil rights groups say could deter illegal immigrants from seeking hospital treatment or enrolling their children in school for fear of being reported to the police.

The new government of non-politicians led by Mario Monti is showing a different attitude towards immigration and integration issues, so much so that a new Ministry for International Cooperation and Integration has been created (although the Ministry of the Interior still remains the key actor in this domain, see  chapter 4.2.7). In March 2012, an "integration agreement" originally provided for by Leg. Decree 286/1998 was introduced to promote a mutual engagement between the state and newly-arrived adult immigrants (from the age of 16 onwards), through language literacy, the knowledge of key civic principles and respect for the "Charter of Values, Rights and Integration" (2007).

In this general framework of alternate moods towards immigration, it is not surprising that migrant communities' fundamental right to culture and freedom of expression, which is enshrined in the Constitution, has not yet been recognised and explicitly promoted – let alone regulated through specific legislation – by the state administration, nor, more specifically, by the Ministry for Culture.

But while no specific cultural policy approach towards Italy's new minorities can be identified at the national level, this gap has been partly filled by recent measures taken at the regional and local level.

In the past decade, a number of regional laws have been passed in implementation of Leg. Decree 286/1998 (see above) with the specific aim of promoting the social integration of migrant residents. Many of them, in particular the most recent ones (Liguria's Regional Law 7/2007, Lazio's Regional Law 10/2008, Marche's Regional Law 13/2009, Tuscany's Regional Law 29/2009, Calabria's Regional Law 18/2009 and Puglia's Regional Law 32/2009), explicitly mention "intercultural education and communication" and the "safeguard of cultural identities" as a means for integration; some (most notably Tuscany's) also refer to "the use of media".

At the local level, many cities in the North and Centre of Italy have appointed representative bodies to promote the civic integration of their growing immigrant communities. One of the first to set the example was the City of Rome, with the appointment of a Special Councillor for Multi-ethnic Policies in 2001, the election of four Assistant City Councillors chosen by migrant residents, and a great effort placed on the creation of a network of formal and informal representative bodies, including the Foreign Citizens' Council of Representatives. The Council initially fell under the responsibility of the Mayor's office, but in 2010 was moved under the aegis of the Social Policies Department – which was interpreted as a sign of its diminished status.

In fact – as it often happens not only in Italy, but elsewhere in Europe – cultural matters concerning immigrant communities still tend to be automatically assigned to social policy and do not seem to concern cultural administrators / institutions and the arts sector as a whole. Noteworthy exceptions to the rule are the programmes and pilot projects promoted by the Department for Heritage Education of the City of Turin with a view to exploring new models of intercultural heritage mediation in museums (see chapter 4.2.7), and the Institute for Cultural Heritage of the Emilia-Romagna Region, which in the past few years has been successfully tapping into European funding (Grundtivg Lifelong Learning Programme) in order to promote workforce development in museums across the region (e.g. "LEM – The Learning Museum", "MAP for ID – Museums as Places for Intercultural Dialogue" and "MTMS – Museums Tell Many Stories" projects).

Your Comments on this Chapter?