'State must help us to receive migrants' says Bologna mayor

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 30 - Migrant reception managed at local level is the best solution to resolving the current migrant crisis, but the government needs to help municipalities to receive the people it sends them, Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore said on Wednesday.
    "Bologna is a city that welcomes (migrants) and wants to continue to welcome (them) in the best possible way, because we believe that this is the solution to the sea arrival emergency, and not sending people away with naval blockades that, as we have already seen this summer, are neither feasible nor effective," said Lepore. However, "if the state sends us migrants, it must also put us in the condition to receive them", he continued, announcing a meeting with the Special Commissioner on Migration Valerio Valenti on September 1 "because we want to work with the government. One possible solution, said Lepore, could be to "unblock the turnover of people in reception", referring to new arrivals who often remain in government-run first-line reception centres "for years".
    Second-tier reception providing integration and inclusion services is instead managed by the municipalities, "allowing first-tier reception centres to be emptied and people to be included in integration programmes".
    This, said Lepore, "has always worked in Bologna", despite the large number of people in second-tier reception in the city.
    "I believe that the debate on immigration should be removed from ideological battles because it affects people's lives.
    If we agree on that, we will find a solution," he concluded.
    Photo: Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore confers honorary citizenship on freed Egyptian doctoral student Patrick Zaki. (ANSA).