Earlier this week, Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said that Italy's
current immigration law needs some changes. In his speech at the Lower House Constitutional Affairs Committee, Mr. Amato argued that a particular provision of the Bossi-Fini Law that required foreign workers to be abroad during the issuance of residency and work permits was impossible and impractical to implement. As such, Mr. Amato urged his colleagues to deliberate whether the law was indeed applicable or whether people were respecting and complying to it.
The
Bossi-Fini law was approved under the administration of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The immigration law was named after Umberto Bossi, the head of the anti-immigration Northern League and later reform minister and Gianfranco Fini, leader of the right-wing National Alliance, who eventually became deputy premier and then foreign minister. While Mr. Amato affirmed the need for a direct link between immigration and available jobs, he said that the current immigration law was too rigid to be applied. He also recommended that work and residency permits, which are about to expire, should remain valid until they are rejected or renewed. Mr. Amato said that the reform was necessary in order to avoid a dead zone and to ensure more protection to an immigrant.
