The leftist Italian coalition government will likely give far more cash per day to migrants than to Italians with disabilities, according Il Giornale‘s analysis of the new budget.
The figures were published this week and have revealed that the government will establish a Disability and Self-Reliance Fund that will see a €50 million investment next year, a €200 million investment in 2021, and €300 million per year from 2022, Il Giornale reports.
Of the three million disabled people in Italy, around two million rely on state benefits, which, according to the newspaper, works out to approximately 54 cents per day for each disabled person.
Meanwhile, the government will give migrants and asylum seekers around €20 per day. The benefit is down from the previous amount of €35 per day and was lowered earlier in the year by former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini while his League party was in coalition with the Five Star Movement.
The move was blasted by pro-migrant associations in May who complained that the amount was less than what dogs in kennels received.
“It is not an economic question, but an ethical one,” Fabio Scaltritti of the Community San Benedetto al Porto in Alessandria said. “Even if the figure had remained at 35 euros a day we would not have enough,” he added.
The budget has been a significant source of disagreement between the leftist coalition of the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party (PD) in recent weeks before the draft was completed last month.
The European Union raised concerns over the new budget due to the country’s structural balance but later commented that it would not be seeking to change the draft.
The EU’s euro economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said that while the European Commission was not seeking to amend the draft, it would still assess the budget for several weeks.