Central Banks
Italy’s Panetta Says EU Needs Immigration to Grow the Economy
- Favoring arrival of foreign workers is a ‘rational’ response
- Countries like Italy need help to compensate aging populations
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European countries including Italy need to allow economic migration if they want to overcome the challenge of aging populations and improve growth durably, European Central Bank Governing Council member Fabio Panetta said.
“Measures that favor an influx of foreign legal workers constitute a rational response from an economic point of view,” Panetta, who is also Bank of Italy governor, said on Wednesday. “The entry of regular migrants should be managed in a coordinated way within the European Union, balancing productive needs with social equilibrium and reinforcing integration of foreign citizens into the education system and labor market.”