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This article discusses the limits of Italian immigration policies and their effects on the Italian market of highly skilled individuals. Highly skilled individuals are normally perceived as valuable resources that a country should foster and even, if possible, attract from other states (Meyer and Brown, 1999). Unfortunately, Italian statutory provisions aimed at regulating immigration focus on limiting immigration without a reasoned distinction between skilled and unskilled immigrants.The paper reflects on the reasons for the parochial structure of the Italian white-collar marketwhich is mainly cultural -and its effects. In the past decades, Italy's private and public sectors have suffered the effects of a "brain drain" of a wide range of highly skilled professionals (Becker, Ichino and Peri, 2003). A series of reasons, such as the fact that Italy is -and has been for some time -one of the world's most sluggish, heavily industrialised economies (Hornby, Mackenzie, 2011), might explain the departure of skilled individuals from the Italian job market.Italy's lack of economic growth in the private sector (and the related high unemployment rate) "pushes" away highly skilled individuals from areas of oversupply (e.g. Italy) to strong economies (e.g. Australia) where particular abilities are in demand.The paper would like to address the issue by suggesting the introduction of a medium/long-term visa for highly skilled individuals (Ottonelli and Torresi, 2010), and by promoting the establishment of private multinational universities modelled on the European Institute in Florence. These new institutions would open the academic job market to overseas researchers and at the same time provide a more solid base for the retrieval of Italian academics working abroad. The paper is divided in two sections which are preceded by an introduction. The first section deals with the Italian immigration statutory provisions. The second explains the policies that might increase the efficiency of the Italian market for elite employees.

What is the role of the nation-state in the process of European constitutional integration? How can we transcend our divisions without marginalising those who believe in them? This article critically analyses the theoretical bases of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe and tries to explain why its ratification is so problematic. Authors such as Habermas have argued that a new European model of social cohesion is needed, and Habermas suggests that the sense of 'community' in a democratic Europe should be founded exclusively on the acceptance of a patriotic constitution. However, this view is criticised by authors such as Weiler and MacCormick. In this article, I explain the limits of these theoretical analyses. I will argue that a European constitutional project can be more than formally legal only if two normative conditions are satisfied: it is the result of public debate and the European Constitution includes the procedures for the recognition of European national diversity. I suggest that a theory of constitutional multinationalism, similar to the one proposed by Tully, might provide an attractive model for a European social integration. The article is divided in two parts. In the first, I explain why Habermas' constitutional patriotism or MacCormick's states based Europe cannot provide a convincing theoretical model for a socially and constitutionally integrated Europe. In the second part, I will give an outline of Tully's idea of multinational democracy as a model for a European constitutional integration.