Mediterranean basin: a melting pot of populations in front of environmental problems

The countries bordering the Mediterranean have in common a millennia-old history, characterized by economic and continuous cultural exchanges. Despite this, during the most recent decades, those of the post-colonial era, the elements of differentiation have surpassed those of commonality. The need for work for the post-war reconstruction of Europe and the poverty of the countries of the SouthEast shore represented the factors of the social and economic imbalance that pushed it a large part of the population of South-East Mediterranean shores to move towards the richer Europe. Even if the flows of migrants have so far remained within limited numbers, nature of the different labour markets in industrialized countries (a lot segmented) and internal unemployment in the SouthEast shore countries have raised the concerns of European countries in the towards immigration, in particular from the Maghreb, from Egypt and from Turkey. Some politicians and a part of public opinion demonstrate the fear that economic and demographic imbalances (the large population growth rate and consequently the massive size of the younger generations in the South-East shore and the marked aging in the North shore due to low fertility), can cause unmanageable flows of South-North migrants. Another critical point of demographic growth, still relatively large in North Africa and Western Asia, is represented by environmental problems