Rome (NEV), December 16, 2017 – A hearing on the issue of “refugees’ sponsorship” took place on December 6th last, in the Aldo Moro Hall of the European Parliament in Brussels. It was a panel attended by, among others, Mary Coulter of the Canadian Embassy to the European Union; Donatella Candura, of the Civil Liberties and Immigration Department of the Italian Ministry of Interior; Cesare Zucconi, general secretary of the St. Egidio Community and Paolo Naso, coordinator of the Mediterranean Hope Program for Refugees and Migrants of the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI). The hearing was chaired by the Italian MEP, Elly Schlein (S&D), proposer of a reformation of the Dublin Treaty.
In addition to a report on the resettlement program implemented by the Canadian government with the formula of the “private sponsorship”, the panel offered a detailed description of the “humanitarian corridors” project launched in Italy and replicated in France and Belgium.
In his speech, Paolo Naso recalled how in Italiy sponsorship was envisaged by the former law on migration named “Turco-Napolitano” – then cancelled and superseded by the more restrictive one named “Bossi-Fini”.
“The advantage of the private sponsorship model – explained Naso – would be that migrants could have a local referent in their path of integration. The availability of a job granted by a ‘sponsor’ would only facilitate the integration process. In some ways, the reception reserved to the beneficiaries of the humanitarian corridors project – he added – follow this inspiration and involves the civil society in an attempt to support the asylum seeker in his path of integration into the Italian society. Hence the very special role that can be played by churches, communities of faith and all the different expressions of civil society”.
