Obtaining Citizenship Through Special Procedures
Argentine President Javier Milei officially acquired Italian citizenship during his visit to Rome, sparking a heated reaction in Italian political circles and public opinion.
According to the ANSA news agency on the 15th (local time), the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs granted citizenship to President Milei on the 13th through a special expedited procedure based on his ancestry. Milei's younger sister Karina also received citizenship.
President Milei has claimed that he is "75% Italian" because three of his grandparents were Italian.
The opposition parties and civil society groups strongly opposed President Milei's rapid acquisition of citizenship.
Riccardo Magi, leader of the center-left party +Europa, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "Granting Italian citizenship to President Milei is yet another insult to boys and girls who were born here, have lived here permanently, have waited for citizenship for many years, and sometimes have received no results."
He questioned, "Can we say that children of immigrants who were born, raised, studied, worked, and paid taxes in Italy are not true Italians?" and criticized, "It is not foreigners like Milei but they who are the true Italians."
Angelo Bonelli, leader of the Green Party, expressed anger, saying, "Why is the expedited procedure applied to President Milei while countless other applicants have to wait for years?"
Italy is known to have the strictest citizenship acquisition requirements in Europe. Even if a child is born on Italian territory, if the parents hold foreign nationality, the child can only apply for citizenship at the age of 18. Considering the severe bureaucracy that can make the citizenship acquisition process take up to four years, these individuals can only obtain citizenship in their early twenties. Although born in Italy, receiving the same formal education, and adopting Italian as their mother tongue, they must live a somewhat contradictory reality of not being legally Italian for the first 20 years of their lives.
Opposition parties and civil society groups have actively pushed for nationality law reform following the women's volleyball team, composed of multiracial and multiethnic players, winning the country's first Olympic gold medal at the Paris Olympics last August. The main points are to reduce the 10-year residency requirement for citizenship applications to 5 years and to allow beneficiaries of this system to immediately pass the new nationality to their children. The nationality law amendment bill has secured 500,000 signatures required for a national referendum and is currently awaiting approval from the Constitutional Court.
Invited by the Italian government for a state visit, President Milei held talks with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the Chigi Palace, the prime minister's residence in Rome, on the 13th, and participated in the ruling party Brothers of Italy (FdI)'s annual political event "Atreju 2024" the day before, delivering a speech.
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