Italy lets a vote happen on whether to loosen rules on citizenship

Government data released on Tuesday showed that pro-migrant and opposition parties have gathered enough signatures to hold a vote on whether to loosen Italy’s strict citizenship rules for foreigners.

Supporters of the cause want to cut the number of years of residency needed to apply for citizenship by naturalization from 10 to 5. They also want to let people who get citizenship pass it on to their children right away.

The Justice Ministry’s web register showed that the organizers had collected the 500,000 signatures needed to bypass parliament and hold a vote of the people instead. This would allow the 1992 citizenship law to be changed without going through parliament, which has been stuck in political gridlock.

The Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court must now both look over the request for a vote. If, as expected, it gets past these problems, there will probably be a vote across the whole country sometime in 2025.

A group of groups, including Oxfam Italia, ActionAid, the +Europa party, and the Italian Socialist Party, said that if the vote passes, about 2.5 million foreigners would be able to become Italian citizens.

Italy’s leading right-wing Brothers of Italy and League parties have both fought against attempts to loosen citizenship rules in the past. However, this summer, another coalition partner, Forza Italia, said it would support change, which came as a surprise.

The long-running discussion was brought back to life by Italy’s successful multiethnic athletes at the Paris Olympics. This shined a bad light on the laws that make it nearly impossible for children of foreign residents to get an Italian passport.

The European Commission says that Italy has some of the strictest citizenship rules in Europe. For example, France, Germany, and Belgium all give citizenship after just five years of living there.

The Commission says that foreigners often have to wait even longer than 10 years in Italy to get a passport because it takes the local government 24 to 36 months to decide on an application.

Since the birthrate in Italy is dropping sharply, experts have long said that the country needs to bring in more foreigners to boost its weak economy. But Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said that migration is not the answer to the population problem.

Now, pro-migrant groups will have to work hard to get people to vote for their proposal. In recent Italian referendums, it has been hard to get at least 50% of voters to show up, which is required for the vote to be valid.