No room for you in here? The past and the future of the asylum seekers’ reception conditions in Italy

Abstract

Italy has been particularly exposed to migration flows for more than thirty years. Nevertheless, the development of an asylum seekers’ reception system in compliance with the standards set forth by the Reception Conditions Directive (RCD) has been very slow. After a brief overview of Member States obligations under international and EU law on asylum-seekers’ reception, the article particularly focuses on the national and European case-law, giving a contribution to the reconstruction of the material reception conditions in Italy (quite critical in some cases). Moreover, it will be highlighted how, according to recent inquiries by national enforcement Authorities and even by the Italian Parliament, the organized crime learned to profit from refugees’ reception. As a consequence, hosting asylumseekers in Italy can be sometimes a business, riddled with corruption and illicit taking of public resources. Yet, under the pressure of the Courts decisions, Italy has undertaken an effort to finally make the reception policies for asylum seekers compliant with the obligations incurred at European and supranational level and recent data show that projects based on the politics of integration by small numbers and in small cities (so called SPRAR) can be fruitful, for both refugees and some local communities. The growing European efforts to contain the migratory flows and a general bias to the tightening of the financial, administrative and procedural aspects linked both to the reception and to the examination of asylum applications put into question the fate of national and international solidarity legal obligations.