ROMANIAN COMMUNITY IN ITALY. ANALYSIS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE AND PUBLIC POLICIES IN ITALY (2000-2020)

Abstract:

At the beginning of the 21st century, with the opening of the prospect of joining the EU and NATO, the Romanian society began to adapt to the new internal and external realities and a massive migration of the population became a painful reality. The degradation of economic life and the opening of perspectives in West have led to the largest wave of migration in peacetime in Europe. Over 5 million Romanians have left Romania and over 1,5 million have settled in Italy. With the presence of an increasingly large community of Romanian citizens, the issues of integration and interaction have become more complex. Various factors disrupted their relationship with Italian communities, often leading to incidents that marked Romanian-Italian relations and were the basis of Italian political discourse in the election campaign. The present study aims to make an analysis of these evolutions and to offer an image on the way in which the presence of the Romanian community has modified the process of elaboration some public policies. In addition to this approach, the study also seeks to analyze the mechanism and political actors that have contributed to these changes in discourse and public policy.

Keywords:

immigration, Italy, Romania, economic immigration, public policies