Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini has presented new guidelines for tenders for migrant reception services, cutting funds for assistance from 35 euros to between 19-26 euros per person.
There will be no more Italian language classes, psychological assistance or territorial orientation. Only those granted international protection will have the right to integration services, which had previously been available for all migrants who have filed asylum requests.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, after the Senate passed a security decree on November 7, presented new guidelines for tenders for reception services that change the entire system and cut spending from an average of 35 euros per person to 19-26.
How reception costs are changing
Guidelines resulting from a meeting with regional and local governments and experts will now be part of an interior ministry decree that will be sent first to the Audits Court and after being approved there will go to prefects' offices. Basically, several types of competition have been outlined for reception services across Italy on the basis of the size of the center: up to 150 places, or 300, 600, 900, 1,200, 1,500 and 1,800 ones. One will be individual reception, meaning up to 50 people.
This means all those hosted in flats, who account for 80 percent of those inserted into the system thus far. The larger the center is, the more the costs to be put on competition will be reduced, with a minimum of 19 euros per migrant for facilities of up to 1,800 people and a maximum of 26 for centers with 300 places. For individual reception, the amount foreseen is 21 euros, while for repatriation centers (CPR), 32 euros will continue to be allocated.
Changes for migrants
For the 144,000 migrants currently in reception facilities in Italy, ''nothing will be taken away'', according to the ministry's director of the immigration and civil liberties department, Gerarda Pantalone. She added that ''all the services provided for by European directives to guarantee dignity of the individual'' will be provided, including ''assistance to the individual'' - such as cultural mediators, information on rights and duties and social assistance - as well as ''healthcare assistance, meal preparation, laundry, environmental hygiene, entrance kit, pocket money and a 5-euro telephone card''. She admitted, however, that there will no longer be integration services, since ''these are reserved exclusively for those granted international protection'' and thus ''they will be given them at a later time''.
In the small centers, certain services and staff will no longer be available, such as the cafeteria and laundry, and in the individual reception circuit migrants will be making their own meals and cleaning their own lodgings, with products provided by the state ''like what happens all across Europe''. When dealing with small numbers of migrants, a single social worker may be put in charge of 50 migrants living in different towns.