ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the political discourse on immigration developed in Greece, Italy and Spain in recent years. I shall analyse the transcripts of interviews conducted with public administration employees, NGO representatives and trade unionists in Athens, Madrid and Rome between May and July 1996. The aim of the chapter is to assess the extent to which the presence of the immigrant leads to a redefinition of the identity of the host country. The interviewees were selected as a suitable target population because they offer ‘privileged testimonies’ of the immigration issue. Moreover, they are likely to have dealt personally with immigrants and related policy questions in their everyday work.
