An Italian 'ethnicity' to protect exists - Lollobrigida

(see related) (ANSA) - ROME, MAY 11 - Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida referred to the need to protect Italian culture and "ethnicity" during an address at a conference on Rome on Italy's declining birth rate on Thursday.
    "I think it is clear to everyone that an Italian race does not exist," Lollobrigida said at the Natality States General (Stati Generali della Natalità) conference.
    "It is a fake problem to imagine a concept of this kind.
    "However, an Italian culture, ethnicity, what the Treccani dictionary defines as a cultural, linguistic group, does exist and I imagine it is what this conference seeks to protect, .
    "Otherwise, it would have no sense.
    "The world's population is growing and many of those who are born around the world would like to come and live in Italy.
    "So why worry about births in Italy? "If the answer is to increase the birth rate, it is probably linked to the defence of that (sense of) belonging which many people are attached to, me in particular, to what is the Italian culture, to our language family, to our way of life".
    Lollobrigida, who is a senior member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party. came under heavy fire last month for saying that Italy's low birth rate meant Italians risked enduring "ethnic replacement" by migrants.
    (ANSA).