An Italian surprise on immigration – which is probably too good to be true
Okay, this is a surprise. And I should start by saying the devil is in the details on such things.
But Georgia Meloni’s rightwing government in Italy just proposed what on the face of it sounds like a practical, sensible and liberal change to Italian immigration policies.
The Italian government of Prime Minister Giorga Meloni on Monday drafted a new package of measures with immigration quotas for the coming years. According to this, more than half a million immigration permits are to be issued in the next three years. The decree, which affects seasonal and non-seasonal workers as well as domestic workers and caregivers, aims to adjust the level of immigration to the needs of the labour market.
Cooperation with the countries of origin and transit of migration to Italy would be promoted in order to facilitate legal migration and combat illegal immigration. Entry of workers with high professional qualifications will also be promoted.1
If the actual proposal is anything like the Standard’s description of it, this will set members of other far-right parties will start foaming at the mouth and rending their clothing in the Biblical manner.
Meloni’s party, the Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia/ Fd’I) has what Britannica politely but accurately calls “neofascist roots.” Alexander Brown in 2023 described a little more bluntly how much in the line of political descent from Mussolini’s Fascist Party, i.e., the one that gave fascism its name:
Mussolini’s death did not signal the end of fascism in the land of its birth. For although the postwar constitution forbade the reformation of the National Fascist Party (PNF), it took barely a year for diehards of the ancien régime to found a successor: the Italian Social Movement (MSI). [Meloni joined the MSI at age 15.]
The reconstitution of the Fascist party thus went forever unchecked. On top of that, there would be no reckoning, no Nuremberg trials, no “defascistization” process of the kind seen in Germany. Indeed, the birth of the MSI on Boxing Day 1946 made Italy a unique case among the defeated nations; in no other was a party founded in continuity with the fascist regime permitted to contest elections.
So began Italy’s ambivalent relationship with its legacy of fascism. In the following decades, the MSI, an out-and-proud neofascist party, would become a fixture of everyday politics. There are 416 fascist monuments still standing in Italy. Streets dubbed after fascists retain their maiden names. And, as the political careers of Mussolini’s granddaughters Alessandra and Rachele demonstrate, having that surname on a poster can be more of a help than a hindrance when it comes to getting elected.2 [my emphasis]
And, as he also writes, Fd’I is a “direct descendant of the neofascist MSI.”
Meloni until last December was the head of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group, a caucus of parties in the European Parliament.3 Some of the worst of the European far-right parties like Germany’s AfD and Austria’s FPÖ and not part of this caucus. But the membership is seriously dubious collection of parties, including Meloni’s Fd’I, the Sweden Democrats, and Poland’s notoriously authoritarian Law and Justice Party (PiS).
Meloni’s previous policies on immigration and refugees has previously been typical of the xenophobic posturing of other far-right policies. Just last year, she had been pushing a rightwing policy that she was holding up as a model to other EU countries.4 That policy has already been limited by legal and practical problems.
So we’ll have to see what actually develops with this seemingly new turn on Meloni’s latest immigration plan.
This brief Deutsche Welle report from earlier this year gives a glimpse at Meloni’s previous immigration policies.5 (
Eine Million Arbeitsvisa in sechs Jahren: Regierung Meloni plant mehr legale Migration. Standard 30.06.2025. <https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000277477/migration-italien-meloni-genehmigte-paket-mit-zuwanderungsquoten> (Accessed: 2025-30-06). My translation to English.
Brown, Alexander (2023): Italy’s Right Still Hasn’t Broken Its Ties to Fascism. Jacobin 03/16/2023. <https://jacobin.com/2023/03/italy-right-fratelli-ditalia-giorgia-meloni-fascism-mussolinis-grandchildren> (Accessed: 2025-30-06).
Polley, Mathieu (2024): Giorgia Meloni steps down as ECR president. Politico 12/15/2024. <https://www.politico.eu/article/giorgia-meloni-steps-down-ecr-president-european-parliament/> (Accessed: 2025-07-04).
(4) Giordano, Elena (2024): Giorgia Meloni: Italy a ‘model to follow’ on migration. Politico 10/15/2024. <https://www.politico.eu/article/giorgia-meloni-italy-model-illegal-migration-policy/> (Accessed: 2025-07-03).
The impact of Prime Minister Georgia Meloni's plans on migration. SW Africa YouTube channel 01/11/2025. (Accessed: 2025-07-04).