
Earlier this month, speaking about the refugee crisis, the Economic Commissioner stated, “There will be an impact on growth that is weak but positive for the EU as a whole, and that will increase GDP by 0.2 to 0.3 percent by 2017.” I would disagree with that statement for a number of reasons. The first of which is that Italy and Greece have been downing in the expense of taking in the refugees for the last 4 years without any real support from the rest of the EU.
Italy has been in recession for the last 6 years and suffers from between 13 and 20 per cent unemployment numbers depending on which source you cite. The unemployment for the youth are up to 43 per cent, yet, that number is blatantly false in that most of the ‘refugees’ landing in Italy are young single men.

So what is the cost to Italy, whom has decided that illegal immigration is no longer illegal, thus you have to place more blame on Italy than the European Union in their case, but the numbers will affect all of Europe. In the ‘welcome centers’ the ‘refugees’ get free board and lodging, mobile phones and €3 per day in pocket money. If this were not enough, they are also provided with free lessons for Italian, driving and job training, like ice cream making.
So what are the real numbers for the Italian tax payer…. €35 per day directly to the ‘refugee’ or roughly €13000 per year per ‘refugee’ in total cost. Some numbers place the number of ‘refugees’ entering Italy in the first half of 2015 was 54,000, thus €702,000,000; using just this number the ‘refugees’ has cost Italy €2,808,000,000 over the past 4 years. Now, however, the EU has set up a relocation ‘solution’ to ease Italy’s burden….the plan is to relocate a mere 40,000 ‘refugees’ over 2 years. Italy will be paid €6000 per head and the receiving state will receive €500 each. As of October 90 ‘refugees’ have been relocated!
Even if the 40,000 target number is reached in 2 years, it would take 8 and half years to relocate just the number of ‘refugees’ that landed in Italy in 2014 and that number is expected to be the same in 2015. Right now Italy is housing 99,000 ‘refugees’ at a cost of €1.16billion ($1.32B) for this year.