Italy and Greece: Between Individual Integration and

Institutional Exclusion

Dr. Anna Triandafyllidou

ELIAMEP

31 May 2007

Greece and Italy differ in...

• Their size (geography and demography)

• Nature and strength of national identity

• Political organisation (centralised vs. Regional)

• Structure of the national economy (Italy has a strong industrial and SME sector while Greece has a weak service oriented economy)

But they are similar in...

• Their geographical position at the southern border of the EU

• Their geographical morphology that makes the control of border crossing particularly costly

• Lack of previous immigration receiving experience

• Large informal economies and internal structural imbalances in the domestic economy (rigid labour markets, lack of labour force in some sectors and excessive supply in others)

Which has led to:

• Repeated regularisations instead of any planned management of flows

• Delayed development of immigration and immigrant policies (but Italy started earlier than Greece!)

• Little competition between migrant workers and natives over jobs

• Persistence of irregular stay and work despite overall normalisation of the immigration phenomenon and the development of related policies for management of flows and integration

Immigrant participation in public life

• Main fields of civic activities

• Main groups that are civically active

• Relationship between participation in ethnic organisations vs activism in host society organisations

• Concluding remarks

Main fields of civic activities

Italy

Social and political activism

Cultural associations

IN

Trade unions

Local/regional elected consultative bodies

Ethnic/immigrant associations

Greece

Providing information/advice

Facilitating the acquisition of legal status

Cultural/religious celebration

IN

Ethnic/immigrant associations

Very limited participation in mainstream organisations

Main nationalities that are civically active

Italy

Albanians

Nigerians

Size of community does not seem to play a role

Specific patterns of settlement, employment and education play a role

Greece

Filipinos

Poles

Overall experience of Communism is a negative factor

Length of stay has an encouraging effect

Relationship between participation in immigrant and mainstream organisations

ItalyCatholic/voluntary civic

participation is decliningImmigration offers a new

field of civic and political activism

Activism in mainstream organisations builds social capital used to set up an ethnic association

Natives and foreigners work together in civil society

GreeceWeak civil society, informal

voluntary activism that is issue-related

Separation of the public sphere: immigrants are excluded from mainstream organisations (trade unions and parties)

Concluding Remarks

In ItalyIntegration of immigrants in

mainstream organisationsPioneering role of some

regions that allow immigrants to vote in local and regional elections

But restrictive naturalisation policy

More research is needed to evaluate the integration measures taken to date

In GreeceImmigrant activism develops

against the odds:• insecure legal status• exclusion from

mainstream organisations• selective naturalisation

policiesResearch should check the

conditions and factors necessary to mainstream immigrant activism incl. the role of EU funding