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The Council of foreign citizien in Bologna

On December 2 the Council of foreign citizens will be elected in Bologna. Thus, immigrants will get opportunity to participate in political life of the Bologna Province. Though the Council won’t have voting rights being merely a consultative body, its creation will contribute to gradual integration of immigrants in local political life.

A little bit of history-The debate on the right of immigrants to vote in local elections has a long history. In 1994 Italy ratified the European Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at Local Level guaranteeing to foreigners the rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association, as well as the possibility of creating consultative bodies at local level elected by the foreign residents in the local authority area or appointed by individual associations of foreign residents. The exception was the third part of the Convention granting to every foreign resident the right to vote in local elections, after five years of legal residence in the host country, and to stand for election. In 2003 then Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini proposed to extend the vote in local elections to non-EU citizens resident in Italy which caused a split in the right-wing coalition. Only the Christian Democrat UDC party supported this initiative, while all the rest to a certain extent expressed objections, even within Fini’s National Alliance. In 2006 Welfare Minister Paolo Ferrero, from the left-wing coalition, spoke in favour of granting voting rights to the immigrants working in Italy and paying taxes, as well as citizenship after five years of residence in the country. But his initiatives were purely verbal. Taking into consideration their controversial nature and disagreements among political parties, it is not surprising that there has not been much progress in the national legislation on the matter so far. 

Why the Council-Nevertheless, since 1990s immigrants have been gradually involved in local political life by way of consultation. Thus, in 2004 in Rome immigrants elected four representatives to Rome city council (one each to represent Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe) and one representative for each of 19 district councils. Councils of foreign citizens are created, in December elections will be held in Bologna as well. The weakness of these consultative bodies lays in their nature – absence of voting rights. While some immigrants consider this form of participation a transitory measure and a step towards giving them full voting rights in local elections, others strongly believe that the government just want to give a kind of compensation justifying its unwillingness to grant to them full voting rights. Some municipalities were planning to include the right to vote to non-EU foreigners in their statutes, but the reaction of the government was negative. Thus, the Council of Ministers nullified the local acts of Turin and Ancona municipalities granting voting rights to foreigners by reason of contradiction between these initiatives and national legislation.
Under such conditions consultative bodies seem to be the only way to promote involvement of immigrants in local decision-making process. Though their representatives do not have the right to vote, they get opportunity to express their point of view on the range of political issues, bring proposals and requests, make local communities aware of problems of immigrants. Moreover, the activity related to councils of foreigners, in particular elections, will give immigrants an experience of participation in public life and help them get acquainted with democratic traditions, lacking in their countries of origin.