Divisions intensify in Italy's government over citizenship laws

ROME -- As Italian politics reawakens after the summer break, it has not taken long to explode back into action. Proposed changes to Italy’s citizenship laws are continuing to cause division within the Italian government, as disagreements between the country’s two deputy prime ministers have ignited a war of words.
Earlier this week, Antonio Tajani, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, said he thought laws over Italian citizenship should change to allow thousands of people to gain Italian nationality through jus scholae: citizenship through completing education in Italy. Speaking on Wednesday at the Rimini Meeting, an annual Catholic conference, Tajani insisted Italy needs to change its outlook on citizenship.
“It’s what our country needs. Italy has changed! In two years, we have welcomed 170,000 Ukrainians. It’s in our history, the Roman empire used to welcome [people].”
“A good Italian is someone who believes in Italy, who knows it, who defends it. How many soldiers are in our army who are children of foreign parents? What about athletes, or [students in] the schools our children go to? The world is changing and continues to change – we need to wake up.”
But Matteo Salvini, also Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, has rejected this idea.
“It isn’t a priority and it isn’t in the government’s agenda,” Salvini, who is also leader of the right-wing Lega party, said.
Jus scholae is not currently enforced by law and, instead, Italian citizenship laws operate based on jus sanguinis, granting citizenship to individuals with an Italian parent or Italian blood relatives.
According to figures from data organisation Openpolis, based on research by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), 900,000 minors living in Italy do not currently have Italian citizenship, equal to ten per cent of the zero to 17 age demographic. These minors reside in Italy and attend Italian schools but are not recognised as Italian citizens.
Changes to Italy’s citizenship laws are also considered a possible solution to problems with the country’s welfare system, as more individuals officially recognised as Italian could help boost an ageing population and potentially ease falling birth rates. Second generation immigrants who were born and raised in Italy but are not considered Italian citizens have long been campaigning for changes in legislation, giving individuals the right to work and live in Italy and the right to vote.
Division within the government’s coalition intensified on Thursday after Salvini’s Lega party posted a video online, showing Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi expressing his opposition to jus scholae and jus soli, a nationality law which grants citizenship to any individual born in the country. Tajani, the leader of the Forza Italian party Berlusconi founded, suggested the video had unnecessarily inflamed political tensions when speaking to journalists on Thursday.
“I know very well what Berlusconi thought and I don’t think Berlusconi should be used [by the Lega party] to cause political controversy.”
“I know what Berlusconi was saying and he was referring to an education cycle of five years [when rejecting jus scholae]. We’re saying that a complete education cycle is needed [to obtain citizenship], which means 16 years of compulsory schooling and gaining a qualification.”
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has not publicly expressed any opinion on Tajani’s proposals but Tommaso Foti, a politician in her Brothers of Italy party and the party’s leader in Italian parliament, questioned the proposal.
“It is very possible that this is a speculative argument by the opposition to create confusion within the majority.”
Tensions within the government over citizenship laws will likely be tested by opposition parties as the Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement, Green Europe, and Italia Viva look set to negotiate the terms of a new draft proposal with Tajani’s Forza Italia.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs insisted legislation should be debated, despite not being on the government’s agenda, and will hope to have the final say.
“Just because it isn’t a theme on the government’s programme does not mean we can’t talk about it. Everyone has the right to freedom of speech: I’m not imposing anything on anyone, but I also don’t want anyone to impose things on me.”
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