Italy needs to think about the young
people leaving Italy for education, research or jobs abroad,
President Sergio Mattarella said Tuesday lamenting the
long-running 'brain drain' from the country.
"Our country, which has a long history of emigration, must open
a proper discussion on the causes of this phenomenon and on the
possible opportunities which the Republic is tasked with
offering citizens who intend to remain living or to want to
return to Italy," he said in a message to the president of the
Catholic MIgrantes Foundation, Mons. Gian Carlo Perego, on the
occasion of the presentation of its "Rapporto Italiani nel
mondo", a report on Italians around the world.
"The Rapporto furnishes, this year too, a very interesting
snapshot of the migratory flows that involve our co-nationals.
"Despite the period of the (COVID-19) pandemic the trend to
leave our Country has grown in the last few years.
"Those who leave are mainly the young, and among them young
people with a high level of training and education, for reasons
of study or work.
"Often they do not return, with significant consequences on the
social and cultural composition of our population.
"Pensioners and whole families also leave. The phenomenon of
this new phase of Italian emigration cannot be wholly understood
within a virtuous dynamic of the processes of global
interconnection, which require an ever greater circulation of
people, ideas and competences.
"In many cases those who leave our Country do so not out of
choice but out of necessity."
Mattarella called on the government to take measures to keep
young people in Italy.
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