Italians will begin voting on Sunday in a referendum on whether to relax citizenship laws, but there are fears that turnout will be so low that it will invalidate the result.
The two-day referendum, ending on Monday, will also ask voters if they agree with reversing a decade-old liberalisation of the labour market.
The labour market questions aim to make it more difficult to dismiss some employees and increase compensation for workers who are made redundant by small businesses, reversing a law passed by a Democratic Party (PD) government around a decade ago.
But it’s the question about citizenship which has attracted the most attention among Italian voters.
Concerns about the scale of immigration helped push Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party to power in 2022.
Italians will be asked if they support the idea of reducing the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship from 10 years to five.
Organisers of the referendum say that, if passed, it could affect around 2.5 million foreign nationals in Italy.
Italy’s birth rate is in steep decline, and economists say the country needs more foreigners to boost its stagnant economy.
For foreigners in Italy, the primary channel to citizenship is through naturalisation, which can occur after 10 years of continuous residence in the country.
The applicant must also demonstrate that they have integrated into society, possess a minimum income, have a clean criminal record, and can speak Italian adequately.
The residence prerequisite is considerably shorter for citizens of other EU member states, who have to wait just four years to apply.
Differences of opinion
Riccardo Magi, secretary of the liberal Più Europa party, supports decreasing the length of time required to apply for citizenship.
He calls the current rules “old and unjust” and says they have only been in force for so long because successive governments have lacked the political will for change.
Magi thinks the referendum proposal is reasonable because it only reduces the residence time requirement while leaving the other requirements unchanged.
He says the current law “forces hundreds of thousands of girls and boys born or raised in Italy to live as foreigners in what is also their country.”
Magi also believes the amendment would have indirect positive effects on many of these minors born or resident in Italy, to whom citizenship would be passed on by at least one New Italian parent.
“Those are who are rooted, work, pay taxes, study… must be able to vote and participate in public votes. This is the liberal idea of citizenship,” he said.
But the Noi Moderati party has said its position on the referendum is a resounding no, the centrist party’s vice-president Maria Chiara Fazio told Euronews.
“Citizenship is the deepest link between the state and the individual,” Fazio stressed.
“It cannot be the subject of a referendum simplification: it is a topic that requires in-depth study, mutual listening and a serious parliamentary debate.”
Fazio defended the structure of the current law, but acknowledged some bureaucratic aspects need to be tightened up as they leave many candidates in limbo.
But the Noi Moderati’s position on the referendum is not unusual. The leaders of two of the coalition parties, Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of Lega or the League, have both said they will not vote on Sunday.
Meloni will attend a polling station but will also not cast a ballot.
That indifference to the referendum appears to have trickled down to regular voters too. A Demopolis institute poll carried out in May estimated turnout to be between 31% and 39%, well short of the threshold required to make the result binding.
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