With the approval of the new legislation promoted by the government, Italian citizens resident abroad will have to face longer and more complex procedures to submit citizenship applications. The practices will be managed by a central office in Rome and no longer by the consulates, with extended waiting times up to three years.
“A new Meloni government law will make citizenship applications even more difficult.” This is in summary the alarm that launches On. Christian Di Sanzo Deputy elected abroad in North and Central America on the new law on consular services for citizens abroad approved at the Chamber of Deputies on October 14. “The new law is an initiative of the Meloni government, another attack by Meloni to Italian citizens abroad. The new law will in fact make the required citizenship practices even more difficult. Today, citizenship practices must be terminated by law within two years and are examined by consular offices on the foreign territory where the citizen is addressed. What the Meloni government has proposed in this law is to increase the number of years to process every practice from two to four, and to centralize all the practices at a central office in Rome to which it will be possible to apply only by paper mail from all over the world – this is a real way to make life to Italians abroad even more difficult”.
Di Sanzo points out that during the parliamentary debate, the Democratic Party managed to contain the negative effects of the measure: “Only thanks to my amendments, together with Mr Toni Ricciardi and other Members elected abroad of the Democratic Party, we managed to limit damage. We have achieved that the time to process the practices goes only three years and not four, as the Meloni government wanted: is however a worsening compared to the current two years, but better than the desired setting from Meloni. Moreover, we have postponed the application of the norm that will leave only from 2028 and, until then, you will still be able to address to your consulate for citizenship practices”.
A positive result was also obtained on the front of identity documents: “We also achieved that AIRE residents can obtain an electronic identity card in Italian municipalities when they are in Italy. So far, for them, only the paper was available: this will lighten the waiting lists in the consulates.”.
Finally, Di Sanzo recalls the overall framework of government policies: “After the law on citizenship approved in May, which denies citizenship to Italian grandchildren abroad, this represents a new attack on Italians in the world. Instead of simplifying procedures, the government is doing everything to make Italians’ lives more complicated abroad.”.
Article New difficulties for citizenship, the narrow government penalizes Italians abroad proviene da IlNewyorkese.
