Is Meloni now leaning to the left?

Italy has a declining and ageing population, last year there were 281,000 more deaths than births and the population fell by 37,000, a trend that has been going on for a decade now. Since 2014, Italy’s population has shrunk by almost 1.9m, which is the equivalent of losing the whole of Milan. Last year there were only 370,000 babies born in Italy. The birth rate has fallen every year for the last 16 years and 2024’s birthrate was the lowest since Italy’s unification in 1861.

Reversing that kind of trend is virtually impossible. You can throw as much money as you want at childcare, give endless tax breaks to families, ban contraception, extend maternity and paternity leave for years, you could even give babies gold cots, but it will make no difference. 

Which is why Italy is rapidly running out of workers and needs immigrants. It will need at least 10m of them in the next 25 years, just to keep its population steady. So, the 500,000 just announced is the start of a very long-term trend. 

Like governments everywhere, including in the UK, Giorgia Meloni is faced with the tough reality that immigration is excellent news for your economy, but is unpopular with voters, which is why the Italian government is also coming down hard on illegal immigration. So, although there are visas to allow in new workers, the Rome government is increasing efforts to repatriate illegal immigrants and even trying to stop charities rescuing drowning migrants in the Med. 

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If Italy’s population problem sounds familiar it is because nearly every western country in Europe and America confronts the same situation. A shrinking or ageing population is placing an ever-greater burden on the smaller native-born working age population. 

Each has a desperate need for immigrants to fill huge gaps in the workforce, boost the economy and pay taxes. Germany alone needs another 10m immigrants to stop the collapse of the size of its workforce yet has just had a general election campaign dominated by anti-immigration policies. 

Just this week German industry has warned that expanding the armed forces by 80,000, which Germany really needs to do, or even reintroducing conscription, would threaten growth and the already very tight labour market. When you can’t find enough troops for a peacetime army without threatening the economy, things are pretty desperate.

That is why the current anti-immigrant political mood is so dangerous. From the pseudo-intellectual theories about “replacement” to the out-and-out racism of the frothing extreme right, a surge of ideas is being promoted that are against the economic interests of the electorate. 

Italy at least has a right-wing government that recognises this and is willing to increase immigration to help the economy, although trying to attract millions of people while whipping up hatred against all foreigners is a difficult trick to pull off, as nearly every country which tries it is finding to its cost.