Easing Access to Nationality: Italians Vote, But Will There Be Enough of Them?
On June 8 and 9, Italians will go to the polls in a major referendum to decide whether to repeal a series of laws and amendments. The most controversial issue is access to citizenship for non-EU nationals: the residence period required to obtain Italian nationality could be reduced from ten to five years.
On the front page of its May 30 edition, the left-wing Italian weekly L'Espresso took a stand with a simple and clear message: “Referendum on June 8 and 9: A battle for our rights.” The headline urges readers to vote “yes” to the repeal of an amendment to the citizenship law. Passed in 1992, this law increased the minimum residence period for a non-European national before being able to claim Italian citizenship from five to ten years. Voters will soon have the option of relaxing access to nationality, increasing this period to five years.
This proposal for a "repeal referendum" had collected more than 500,000 signatures by September 2024, as required by law, leaving Giorgia Meloni's conservative government no choice but to organize it.
If the “yes” vote were to win, “1.706 million people, including 286,000 minors, could obtain citizenship,” reports the Milanese news site Il Post . However, foreigners applying for citizenship will still have to prove a minimum annual gross income of 8,263 euros, which could in reality greatly limit the number of naturalizations – just over a million, the newspaper suggests.
Courrier International
