Sonsini expresses his view as a political analyst on the eve of the European Election
In this second excerpt of his interview with Marco Sonsini, Aleksandar Markov, reporter the National Bulgarian Television BNT1, asks:’What really scares Italian people, migration or bad economy?’
Sonsini replies that Italians are scared about both: in his view the two issues are interconnected.
‘Within a single currency area with a clear deflationary bias, Italy has a huge competitiveness issue, which resulted in the financial turmoil in 2011. Beyond any economic policy implemented by the Governments over the last years, the real “structural reform” to cope with this competitiveness issue has been the inflow of hundreds of thousands of workers with no qualification, particularly from Africa, who are ready to work for much less than the Italians.’ He adds that the inflow of cheap labour in a country with an already high unemployment rate, a stagnant economy and a deregulated labour market with no guarantee on wage levels and contracts has a potential to generate social unrest ‘and this is precisely what is happening in Italy. Austerity has done no good to the Italian economy, and as unemployment reached its all-time high, the presence of migrants exacerbated competition between foreign and native workforce in low-wage sectors.’
You can see the interview here.
SocialTelos