Europe and the question of unaccompanied minors The decisions made by the Ministers of the Interior during the Summit of last 3 June on the foreign unaccompanied minors represent a big novelty and a real turning-point in one of the most thorny and underestimated chapters of contemporary immigration. After years of guilty indifference on behalf of the European institutions, it has been set that this issue can no longer be entrusted exclusively to the single governments in the same way as every case cannot be managed on the basis of the perceptivity of the single national administration. So far, these are the only bodies qualified to make decisions on the initiatives and the most proper instruments to advance in this field. Whoever deals with immigration issues is well aware of how the question of unaccompanied minors is relevant both in ethical and social terms. They embody a particularly vulnerable category of migrants. The majority of them are boys aged between 15 and 17, that at the end of long and very risky journeys, manage to enter illegally the countries of the Old Continent. They are labelled as ‘unaccompanied’ because they arrive without their parents or other adult reference persons. When they manage to reach Europe, when they avoid the police and the social services interceptions, they live in conditions of great social marginalization and they are exposed to the risks of being involved in criminal activities and prostitution racket. The first and fundamental aim of the enacted set of laws, is one of calling the attention of the States to comply with n.1 commitment that was imposed in the International Conventions on the obligation of the supreme protection of the interests of the minor, in every aspect that regards him, by guaranteeing his right to a special guardianship. These are very ambitious and complex goals to achieve that require a strong coordination capacity in different areas of activity: fight against illegal immigration; innovation of the reception policies; reorganization of the strategies in the field of cooperation with third countries; signing of memorandum of understanding and agreements with the authorities of the countries of origin in order to allow, with the necessary protection measures and guaranties, repatriation. As the Italian experience shows, in the last 15 years there have been several waves of arrivals of minors, initially from Albania and then from respectively Morocco, Romania, Egypt and recently from Afghanistan. Especially, with regard to the repatriations, not only they are difficult to realize, in general, but they are also opposed by the associations and the social workers. In fact,  they are deemed as counterproductive because in the countries of origin it is impossible to guarantee the necessary guardianship and protection of these minors. In order to know who they are and why there are foreign unaccompanied minors, West will publish a proper survey that, starting from next week, will make stock of this question in Italy and Europe.