‘Emigration is Not Inevitable’: The Critique of Free Circulation and the Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and Their Families

Abstract

This article examines the idea of ‘free circulation’ in the context of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, the founding document of the European Economic Community. It also examines the critique of that right that was developed by Italian Communists, specifically Carlo Levi, Paolo Cinanni and the organization that the two men cofounded in 1967, the Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and Their Families (Federazione italiana lavoratori emigranti e famiglie [FILEF]). FILEF rapidly became the largest organization of left-wing Italian emigrants abroad. Its publications interpreted emigration not as a form of ‘free movement’, as the standard narrative of European integration would have it, but as a disguised form of forced migration. Writers for the organization argued that the ‘free circulation’ guaranteed by the Treaty of Rome was a hollow promise; the state should turn its attention to ending emigration rather than glorifying it as a purported ‘right’.