Much has been said (and written) about remigration in Italy, especially following the Remigration Summit held in Gallarate in May 2025 and the press conference on the topic—canceled just hours before the event—that was supposed to take place at the Chamber of Deputies in January 2026.
Amid condemnation, alarmism, and political exploitation, and despite the rivers of ink spilled, almost no commentator seems to have bothered to explain what those who have made this term a project and a banner actually mean by “remigration”: I will therefore attempt to do so, drawing on the manifesto by Martin Sellner, an Austrian activist who serves as an indispensable reference point for European “remigrationists.”
In his book titled Remigration: A Proposal, published in Italy by Passaggio al Bosco with a foreword by Francesco Borgonovo, and recently reissued in conjunction with the daily newspaper La Verità, Sellner outlines the details of his reverse migration project with remarkable precision.
An Accurate Theoretical Framework
It must be said that we are far removed from the violent and dictatorial imagery often evoked by critics of remigration: from the very first chapter, remigration is in fact framed in an extremely neutral manner, based on the definition adopted by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education, as
“the return of migrants to their country of origin […]when the success or failure of the migration project—success or failure defined individually or collectively in any way—makes repatriation possible or necessary”.
The author dwells at length on the reasons why we must now seriously discuss remigration, paying close attention to both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the migration phenomenon: Sellner briefly outlines the demographic landscape of today’s Europe, demonstrating, figures in hand, how the migratory phenomena that have been directed toward Western Europe for the past thirty years undeniably represent a form of replacement immigration and how family reunification gives rise to dynamics of “chain migration” that place an unsustainable burden on the welfare systems of European countries.
The author also focuses on the theme of national identity as the primary glue that guarantees a nation’s unity and the stability of the social contract, identifying the root of this identity in a founding myth to which all citizens, whether native-born or adopted, are expected to adhere; focusing on the German case, Sellner then emphasizes how the cult of guilt linked to World War II has effectively become the founding myth—in a negative sense—of the Federal Republic of Germany, giving rise to a national identity centered on a markedly negative conception of the collective self (a consideration which, in various forms and degrees, I believe can safely be extended to all of Western Europe and its colonial past, which has never been fully reworked).
Sellner frequently refers to the concepts of integration and assimilation, recognizing, with commendable analytical skill, the differences between organic minorities (who retain their distinctiveness but do not deny the nation’s dominant character nor challenge its fundamental structures) and minorities who create ethnocultural enclaves by refusing to integrate, maintaining political loyalty to their country of origin, engaging in ethnic voting, and systematically denying the legitimacy of the dominant national culture in the country that has welcomed them.
Who should be repatriated?
The Austrian activist believes that the subjects of repatriation should be precisely these minorities “hostile” to the prevailing national culture—minorities that, in his view, do not represent a monolithic reality but should instead be distinguished through careful demographic analyses that allow for an assessment, group by group, the extent of the burden that the presence of members of a given community places on the host state economically, criminologically, and culturally; while expulsion measures will remain on an individual basis, following an assessment of each specific case, identifying the most problematic communities is fundamental for defining migration policies in the years to come, reducing quotas reserved for immigrants of nationalities that have proven statistically difficult to integrate and increasing them, where necessary, for citizens of countries that have proven statistically more suited to integrating constructively into our societies.
On the religious policy front, Sellner advocates instead for the support and full recognition of a moderate and tolerant European Islam, accompanied, however, by a zero-tolerance policy toward radical Islam and toward any form of support for religiously motivated terrorism.
How to implement remigration?
In my view, the only weakness in Sellner’s proposal may lie precisely in the manner in which remigration should be translated from a political proposal into government action; repatriation policies should, in fact, according to the author, be based largely on data collected by an Assimilation Observatory to be established as soon as possible.
However, since such a body does not currently exist, any speculation regarding its actual ability to measure the degree of integration or assimilation of immigrant communities and the individuals within them remains, as of now, purely speculative.
While the idea of resorting to voluntary repatriation programs with strong economic incentives is indeed grounded in some past experiences that have yielded good results, the proposal to establish “model cities” on the North African coast to house immigrants expelled from Europe but not immediately repatriable seems, at first glance, unlikely to me—both because it would presuppose the cooperation and stability (neither of which is at all guaranteed) on the part of the governments of the countries where such cities would be established, and because maintaining a minimum of public order in urban agglomerations whose population consists almost exclusively of individuals expelled because they are problematic and/or unintegratable could prove far more arduous than Sellner seems to imagine.
In any case, these are surmountable and entirely natural limitations for a project still in its embryonic phase, which in no way undermine the value and credibility of Sellner’s proposal as a whole.
The Ethical Foundation of the Remigration Project
From my perspective, the arguments put forward by the author as a moral justification for the remigration project are very interesting.
One of the most significant could be summarized as follows: if non-European immigrant communities claim the right to remain true to themselves—that is, to keep their original cultural identity intact despite having moved to Europe—then that right should logically be recognized in equal measure for native Europeans as well.
However, while the cultures of immigrant communities are nurtured, defended, and protected (even politically) by the homelands where such cultures remain indisputably and fiercely dominant—if not outright all-encompassing! —within a few decades, indigenous European cultures, reduced to minority subcultures in a Europe that is demographically less and less European, will no longer enjoy any protection guaranteeing indigenous Europeans the right to remain true to themselves, nor the right to a common home, in some corner of the globe, inhabited by a community in which they can truly recognize themselves.
Here Sellner makes a point that I believe is fundamental: those who have immigrated to Europe still have a choice; that is, they still have a homeland (however poor or poorly governed it may be) to which they can return if things go wrong; we Europeans, once we have lost Europe, will have no home to return to, no alternative, but will become nothing more than a scattered minority, fragments of a Nation without a State.
A minority, it must be added, that is small, fragile, easily recognizable, and exposed to every form of abuse: and likely destined to disappear from the face of the earth within a couple of centuries.
For this reason, remigration should be framed politically (and subsequently also legally) as an act of collective self-defense by the indigenous European peoples, shifting the debate from the level of immigrants’ individual rights to that of the collective right of national communities to preserve themselves.
For if a state has the right to demand that its citizens sacrifice their lives in war to defend the nation, then it also has the duty to expel those non-natives who pose a threat to the nation itself, even if such expulsion were to jeopardize the well-being or very lives of the individuals in question; otherwise, we would find ourselves in the paradoxical situation of a state that places greater value on the lives of immigrants than on those of its own citizens!
A disturbing prospect: but perhaps—linking back to the “cult of guilt” Sellner mentioned—also extremely relevant today.