Millions of people with Italian roots lose their right to citizenship.
Key Takeaways
- Italy’s Constitutional Court will uphold the 2025 emergency decree that tightens citizenship by descent (jure sanguinis), limiting eligibility and adding new requirements.
- Under the reform, only applicants with a parent or grandparent born in Italy qualify; applicants must also pass a state language test (or equivalent) and typically show three years’ residency in Italy.
- The change reverses a long practice allowing descendants whose ancestor was alive after March 17, 1861 to claim citizenship — affecting millions, especially in Argentina and Brazil.
- It has been reported that the government says the measure aims to stop “abuses” by those seeking citizenship primarily for practical advantages, not cultural ties; it is unclear how pending applications will be handled.
Background
Italy’s emergency decree of late March 2025, designed to restrict longstanding citizenship-by-descent rules, has cleared a major legal hurdle: the Constitutional Court announced it will largely back the government’s measure, rejecting some challenges and finding others inadmissible. Citizenship by descent (jure sanguinis) historically allowed people to claim Italian nationality if any ancestor was alive after Italy’s unification date, March 17, 1861. That broad rule enabled many people with distant Italian ancestry to apply with translations and legalized documents — a process that often took a couple of years.
What the new law requires
The 2025 decree narrows eligibility: applicants must now have been born to a parent or at most a grandparent who was an Italian citizen. Additional substantive requirements include demonstrating Italian language proficiency through a state examination or an accepted certification, and proving at least three years of residence in Italy in most cases. The government frames the changes as a safeguard of national identity and a response to alleged “abuses,” and it has been reported that Italian officials argue many new overseas citizens have little ongoing connection to Italy.
What this means for applicants and families
Practically, millions who had expected to secure citizenship through more distant lineage will lose that pathway. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Italian citizen population abroad rose from 4.6 million to 6.4 million between 2014 and 2024, concentrated largely in Argentina and Brazil — communities now most affected. For people currently in the application pipeline, the decree’s impact is uncertain: applicants and lawyers should watch for implementing regulations and guidance from consulates and the Ministry clarifying whether pending cases will be grandfathered or reassessed under the new rules. In short: if you can trace a parent or grandparent to Italy and can meet the language and residency tests, you may still qualify; if your link is more remote, you likely will not.
Source: Original Article