Cabinet Secretary Alfredo Mantovano said Tuesday that combatting Italy's chronically low and still falling birth rate is the most important challenge facing the government.
"For the government, for the whole government, the most important challenge is that of the birth rate: it is more important than energy supply and migration," he said at the annual meeting of influential lay Catholic activist group Communion and Liberation in Rimini.
"A social body that refuses to bring children into the world has no hope in the future. The challenge must be faced in a serious way and in stages that put aside easy slogans.
"The demographic collapse is the element of greatest crisis of Italy today", said the right hand man of Premier Giorgia Meloni.
Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)