Abstract

The essay explores the migration phenomenon from a historic perspective, analysing how migration policies developed up to nowadays. After outlining the reasons beneath the genesis of policies of immigration encouragement in the modern era, the author highlights the historical path through which Europe became, in the twentieth century, from an exporter to an importer of human resources. The analysis concludes examining the reasons of the restrictive and poorly far-seeing approach to migration phenomena characterizing current regulatory policies of migration fluxes in the European states.