Matteo Salvini’s populist League (La Lega) has promised a comprehensive new pro-family government policy including child care and other policies to encourage Italians to have more children, with the plan being partially funded by a tax on migrants sending cash overseas.
Salvini, who serves as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior as the leader of one half of Italy’s new populist coalition government, noted that he wanted Italian couples to have more children in the future at a recent meeting in Cervia and a proposed bill from his party aims to make that a reality Il Giornale reports.
Salvini remarked in an interview last month, “We have created a ministry of the family to work on fertility, nurseries, on a fiscal system which takes large families into account. At the end of this mandate, the government will be measured on the number of newborns more than on its public debt.”
Earlier this year the Italian Statistics Bureau (ISTAT) released figures showing a projected ten percent population decline in the next few decades due to low birthrates int he country.
The bill, which was drafted and presented by several Lega members in March of this year, would see Lega assert marriage between a man and a woman as the foundation of the family.
Lega Family Minister Lorenzo Fontana caused a degree of controversy after his appointment, remarking: “The current family law situation cannot fail to take account of what has been happening in recent months on the issue of the recognition of parenthood, with the registration of children conceived abroad by couples of the same sex via the use of practices that are banned by our laws and should stay so.”
Fontana made headlines again last week when he proposed scrapping hate speech legislation, saying that “racism has become the ideological weapon of the globalists and their lackeys (some journalists and mainstream commentators, certain parties).”
La Lega’s new family policy will also seek to discourage abortions, as well as pay cash to those with children under the age of three, provide free daycare, and introduce new tax deductions.
The funds to pay for the new programmes will largely come from a new tax on migrants sending money overseas which will amount to 3 percent of the total money sent or a minimum of five euros.
Since Mr Salvini’s move to block NGO migrant ferries from Italian ports, both he and La Lega have enjoyed an immense rise in popularity in Italy. Current polling shows them neck and neck, in some cases ahead, of their anti-establishment Five Star Movement coalition partners, currently the largest part in the country.
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