What is Ius Italie? The shadows surrounding the citizenship reform.

For a handful of days, the proposal, already presented in November 2024 by Forza Italia and pompously named by its proponents " Ius Italiae," for a reform of the law governing the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreign minors settled in Italy, dominated the political debate. The debate (if one can even call the embarrassing charade that followed) lasted as long as a summer storm, and now the matter has been shelved by its less-than-courageous proponents . With the lights out, it is therefore useful to examine the content of the proposed law AC 2080/24, which has received almost no discussion because its content has remained in the background of the political skirmish.

The proposed law, the rationale for which is very briefly explained by its proponents in the introductory report, focuses on amending Article 4 of Law 91/92 (the current legislation on citizenship), introducing a new paragraph 2-bis. This paragraph states: " A foreigner born in Italy or who entered Italy before reaching the age of five, who has resided legally without interruption in the national territory for at least ten years and who, pursuant to current legislation, has regularly attended compulsory education for at least ten years at institutions belonging to the national education system and successfully completed them, becomes a citizen if he or she declares his or her intention to acquire Italian citizenship within one year of reaching the age of majority. Before reaching the age of majority, the declaration is made by the person exercising parental responsibility. A foreign minor who acquires citizenship pursuant to the second sentence of this paragraph, if in possession of another citizenship, may renounce Italian citizenship within one year of reaching the age of majority."

The proposed law therefore appears to aim to recognize greater value in the life journey and socio-cultural roots of minors born to foreign parents who are not Italian citizens and who spend all or most of their childhood in our country. Minors who meet the legal requirements should not have to wait until they reach adulthood to apply for citizenship, through their parents, and citizenship should be acquired by the time they reach adulthood. From this perspective, it certainly presents positive aspects, as it moves toward equalizing the status of minors born in Italy with that of minors who were not born in Italy, but nevertheless grew up there. Currently, in terms of citizenship acquisition, these two life situations, though so similar, are unreasonably treated very differently from a legal perspective. Despite these positive aspects, it is clear that the proposed law presents significant rigidities and logical contradictions with respect to its stated objectives. Why, for example, not consider the situation of a minor who entered Italy after the age of five and therefore had to, not by choice but by circumstance, begin and complete his or her schooling only later? Why require a minor's legal residence in Italy to be uninterrupted for ten years if his or her schooling was successfully completed anyway? The minor could (indeed, should), as current law provides, have attended school even without a valid residence permit.

Consider the very frequent cases of regularization of a family's residence after a period of irregularity, or, conversely, cases where a family unit loses its legal residence. Or the even simpler cases where the legal residence has not ceased, but merely residency has been lost. Is the life path in Italy of minors whose families experience all these disparate situations (largely caused by the irrational structure of the current Consolidated Law on Immigration ) perhaps less valuable than that of minors who experience better situations? The most critical aspect of the proposed law, however, concerns the effects it would have, if approved: the separation of the legal statuses of members of the same family unit, not as a particular and residual situation, but as a system in place. As mentioned above, the proposed law requires that minors seeking Italian citizenship have resided in our country for at least ten continuous years. Readers will note that this is the same requirement required for the minor's parents to submit their citizenship application (provided they also meet the other requirements). It is well known, however, that minors' parents rarely actually submit their citizenship application after ten years of legal residence in Italy.

Typically, the time is much longer, for many reasons, two of which are primary: the period of legal residence in Italy is preceded, in the vast majority of cases, by a period, sometimes a very long one, of irregularity, and even the period of legal residence does not always coincide with the required period of legal residence; the family's income may have been or become insufficient, perhaps precisely when the family was preparing to submit the application for naturalization. Financial hardship stalls the process or even prevents it from even starting, because the current rigid rule is not based on a proper assessment of the family's overall history in Italy, but only on a strict assessment of recently accrued income (in somewhat crude terms, if you lost your job because the factory where you worked recently closed, citizenship is no longer possible). This obstacle course, combined with the abnormally long processing times (three years plus one) for citizenship applications, means that citizenship is often granted only after the foreigner has accumulated fifteen, eighteen, or even more years of residence in Italy.

If the only possible reform of the current , outdated citizenship law were the one contained in the proposed law we are examining, minors from foreign families would ordinarily become citizens many years earlier than their parents, who would otherwise remain foreigners for long and indefinite periods. This would be a complete reversal of the norm in social life, where, except in exceptional circumstances, the new citizenship acquired by their parents is extended to the minor. I leave it to sociologists, social psychologists, and anthropologists to better understand the consequences, which I believe to be significant, of such distortions on foreign families and on Italian society in general. An effective reform of Italian citizenship law, appropriate to the times we live in, must prioritize foreign adults, without artificially isolating the legal status of their minor children. And it is precisely by turning our gaze to the referendum question – which, if it had been accepted, would have increased the period of uninterrupted legal residence to five for applying for citizenship, aligning Italy with the choices made by almost all the most advanced European countries ( see article of 18.01.25 ) – that we can see with particular clarity how the reform idea contained in the proposed law is completely inadequate.

Is there a positive aspect to this bill, destined, at least for now, to remain on the shelf? There undoubtedly is, as I indicated above: despite the limitations and inconsistencies highlighted, the bill's strength, which should be preserved and incorporated into a more solid and coherent future reform plan, is that foreign minors who spend their entire developmental years in Italy become Italian citizens, and thus develop an unbreakable bond with our country (a bond that, in my opinion, develops even in cases of academic failure). A general principle of safeguarding the status of foreign minors must therefore be included, including those situations in which, for a variety of reasons, parents do not acquire citizenship. However, such a legislative change, in order to avoid the distortions I have attempted to illustrate, cannot in itself serve as an alternative to the urgent need for a reform of the current Italian citizenship legislation that affects the foreign population in general and can thus accompany the country's evolution.

FROM

Gianfranco Schiavone