The arrival of immigrants electrifies the demographic debate in southern Europe

Matteo Salvini, head of the Italian far-right league, quickly praised the decision taken by the Spanish Socialist-led government send the military when thousands of migrants entered its territory.

“Spain is defending its borders,” Salvini said this month in a Spanish enclave in Ceuta, North Africa, where troops were deployed mostly to come to Morocco. “Now it’s our turn.”

Lampedusa, one of the main destinations for ships crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa, sought to contrast with the advanced Italian island and more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants arrived within 24 months this month.

Although the situation in Lampedusa is very different from that in Ceuta, while the Spanish-Moroccan agreement allowed the large majorities that crossed the border to return quickly, Spain and Italy are very similar in terms of immigration.

Today, the two main EU states are for migrants crossing the Mediterranean: 42,000 people arrived in Spain last year International Organization for Migration, 34,000 in Italy and 15,000 in Greece.

Both Italy and Spain also face serious demographic challenges as a result of the rapidly aging population.

In fact, two days after mobilizing Spanish troops to help close undocumented migrants to Ceuta, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez presented a study that determined Spain’s dependence on large-scale immigration in the coming decades.

Paper, Spain 2050, according to the work of academics and analysts in one year, even if the country kept 191,000 net immigrants a year in the next three decades – slightly lower than the last historical average – the working age population would fall by 3.7 million to the current 31m level.

He acknowledged that such slips could reduce the size of the economy and jeopardize the country’s welfare state.

In contrast, the document said that if net immigration were higher, it would halve the decline in available labor by 255,000 a year, to 1.8 million by 2050.

Diego Rubio, the official who coordinated the report, said there was no contradiction in the government’s stance. “Fighting irregular immigration on our borders and promoting legal immigration to our countries are fully compatible,” he said.

He continued: “Spain is open to those who seek a better future, because it is a country with a sense of solidarity, we know that we need people from abroad to fight demographic decline and ensure the country’s prosperity and well-being in the medium and long term.”

To remind them of the issues at stake, the OECD announced on Thursday that by 2050 Spain would become the member state with the highest dependency ratio on old age – the proportion of the population over the age of 65 to work – Japan and then South Korea.

Spain continues to be less concerned with immigration than other European countries. According to a recent Eurobarometer survey, less than one in three Spaniards mentioned migration as one of the bloc’s main challenges, below the EU average of 44 per cent.

However, the issue has become more sensitive with the emergence of the right-wing Vox party, which is also running against illegal migrants in regional elections, and has complained about how the government has handled incursions into Ceuta. Spain 2050 document. The head of Vox, Santiago Abascal, described the proposal as “to replace [Spanish] population “.

If the rise of Vox has made the debate on immigration more contentious in Spain, the debate in Italy is even more controversial, with the Salvini League leading the polls.

Mainly due to lower recent immigration rates, there are demographic problems in Italy even more serious Than that of Spain. Last year, the country’s population fell by almost 400,000 people – the equivalent of the loss of all of Florence’s population – in the biggest decline in more than a century.

Leading politicians have generally been very reluctant to suggest increased migration as a solution.

Salvini and other anti-migrant leaders have called for a boost in the birth rate. When Tito Boeri, the then head of the Italian pension agency, suggested to him three years ago that the country needed more legal migration, Salvini, the then interior minister, accused him of “living on Mars.” Boer was soon replaced.

Now, as better weather increases the likelihood of more migrant ships crossing the Mediterranean, the issue is once again escalating the political agenda.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has announced cuts to illegal arrivals, working closely with the Libyan and Tunisian governments and distributing migrants from EU member states.

He vowed to pursue a “humane” policy, where “no one will be left alone in Italian waters.” Another 130 migrants are believed to have drowned off the Libyan coast last month – a tragedy denounced by Pope Francis as a “moment of shame”.

Salvini and Giorgia Meloni, leaders of the hard-line right-wing opposition party of the Italian Brothers, have denounced the recent rise from Libya to islands like Sicily and Lampedusa.

Some activists have stated that these anti-migration policies are setting the agenda. “It’s a very important issue for politicians because it affects a lot of voters,” said Marta Bernardini of the Mediterranean Hope NGO, which works in Lampedusa.

“Left parties are afraid of populism, and at the moment they are not presenting a clear vision of migration policy,” he said.

Despite such tensions, Mariona Lozano, a researcher at the Center for Demographic Research in Barcelona, ​​argued that, at least for Spain, she intended to continue the arrival of recent years.

“Migration responds to economic pressures,” he said. “Most born abroad People in Spain come from America and Europe, but migration to North Africa is the oldest route and will not stop. ”