A Silvio Berlusconi ally slated to become Italy's next foreign minister outlined possible policies to reduce the country's immigrant population in an interview published on Monday.
Franco Frattini, who is currently European Commissioner for Justice and Security but is expected to be assigned the foreign ministry portfolio by Premier-elect Berlusconi, called for tighter rules on residence permits and a crackdown on foreign criminals in the interview with the daily Il Giornale.
He suggested work-related residence permits should only be granted to foreigners who can prove they are earning a certain wage.
''Anyone above this limit can stay, while those unable to prove they are earning this minimum wage should be sent back to the country they came from,'' Frattini told the Berlusconi family-owned daily.
''Without this restriction, we can't send anyone away,'' he added, referring to measures that allow foreigners to remain in Italy beyond three months, provided they hold some kind of job.
Frattini also called for tough new legislation to deal with foreign nationals suspected of crimes.
''Simple expulsion is not enough,'' said Frattini, who was a foreign minister in the last Berlusconi administration before taking up his current, high-profile role of European commissioner.
''They must be arrested immediately, tried using a fast-track procedure and then expelled to serve their sentences in the countries they came from,'' he said.
''It isn't right that foreign criminals are being housed in our jails''.
Under current Italian law, foreigners charged with an offence may be expelled immediately before standing trial.
If they are not expelled, they may be detained for months or even years during the trial and appeal.
If convicted, they serve their sentence in Italy and are usually deported afterwards.
A report issued last week on prison overcrowding found that foreigners account for 38% of Italy's jail population.
Around a fifth of these are jailed for breaking Italy's immigration laws, noted the report by the Prison Administration Department.
Immigration and security issues, which played a key role in the centre-right's election campaign, were back in the news this month after a foreigner was arrested in connection with a brutal sex attack in Rome.
The 37-year-old Romanian man was detained following an incident in which a woman was knifed and raped outside a Rome railway station.
Parallels were immediately drawn with a savage murder at the end of October, which horrified the nation and led to the expulsion of dozens of Romanians considered a threat to public order.
In that case, a woman was beaten, raped, robbed and then left to die by a 24-year-old Romanian gypsy outside another Rome railway station.
