CRIMINALIZZAZIONE DELLA SOLIDARIETÀ IN EUROPA

My thesis is focused on criminalization of solidarity towards migrants and asylum refugees in Europe. The migration fluxes to Europe are a topic highly debated in everyday political agendas, focusing on the number of individuals daily crossing the Community’s borders and appealing to a common response at the European Union level to address on the phenomenon collectively. National norms on migration deviate from the standards set at the Community level, while authorized methods to access regular migration remain very limited. The absence of a common, homogeneous framework to efficiently manage migration and the popularity of the irregular routes to access the Union has made member States generally hostile to migration, with immediate consequences also on private individuals, solidarity movements and organizations that try to assist and help migrant people in the reception and integration process. The role of NGOs in the management of migration is crucial: among many other functions, they support governments in the migration field wherever gaps are present, they assist migrants in search and rescue operations at sea, they provide support in the integration process in society. However in the last few years the public conception on NGOs and their role in society has changed. The increase of migration fluxes and the politicized use of migration for electoral purposes has lead to a reputation damage and a tendency to suspect the role of NGOs in supporting migrants. This trend has become extreme with an explicit process of criminalization: by analyzing the Sea Watch and Iuventa case, I tried to study the social and political environment that brought to a feeling of hostility towards NGOs, the alleged accusals of aiding and abetting illegal migration through their humanitarian operations, up to the implications and consequences on their work. The study of these two cases underlines the major tendency of many governments - in this case, Italy in particular - to establish legitimate and not-so-legitimate policies to reduce migration fluxes. Through restrictive legislation, limitations to search and rescue operations, obstacles to social assistance of migrants, up to judicial trials against NGOs, some public authorities have tried to manage migration flux through the criminalization of migrants and of the organizations that assist them.