Migration won’t solve Europe’s demographic crisis: Italy’s PM

ROME: Some legal migration can benefit European economies, but migration is not the solution to the continent’s demographic crisis, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday as she met right-wing ally Viktor Orban in Budapest.Meloni was addressing a summit meeting on demography hosted by the Hungarian prime minister, a long-time political friend.

“I think that a quota of legal migration...can make a positive contribution to our economies, but I remain convinced that it would be more responsible for us to entrust European citizens with the solution to the European welfare system crisis,” Meloni said.

Meloni’s coalition, which came to power last October, has been pushing a nationalist agenda that includes a tough approach to migration, pledges to boost Italy’s record low birth rate, legislation against LGBT parenting and the use of foreign words in official documents.

“We live in an era where everything that defines us is under attack,” Meloni said, adding that defending the traditional model of the family and God was part of “a great battle” to protect humankind and the rights of people.

Orban, writing on the same social media, said Italy and Hungary were “leading the way” in shifting EU politics towards the right. “We need more #conservative governments in Europe to make a change in Brussels,” he said.

Meloni faces a mounting migration crisis at home, where the tiny, far-southern Italian island of Lampedusa has seen thousands of people coming ashore from Northern Africa over the last few days.