The destiny of tens of millions of immigrants is at stake as Italians vote in a two-day referendum that proposes to hurry up the method of buying citizenship for foreigners who legally entered the nation.
The referendum additionally seeks to roll again labour reforms to supply enhanced job protections.
Polling stations opened on Sunday at 7am native time (05:00 GMT), with outcomes anticipated after polls shut on Monday at 3pm (13:00 GMT).
The measures – backed by opposition events, labour unions and social activists – are aimed toward revising citizenship legal guidelines to assist second-generation Italians born within the nation, to non-European Union mother and father, combine extra simply.
Nevertheless, the vote could fail to generate ample turnout to be deemed legitimate – a turnout of greater than 50 p.c is required for a referendum to be legally binding.
Forward of this weekend’s vote, the citizenship challenge has garnered loads of consideration in a nation the place considerations over the dimensions of immigration helped propel right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s anti-migration coalition to energy in late 2022. Immigration has emerged as a key challenge, notably in Western Europe in addition to america below President Donald Trump.
So, what does the referendum suggest, and what does it imply for immigrants whose lives are in limbo as a result of gradual means of naturalisation within the EU member nation?
What are the Italian citizenship necessities, and what number of immigrants are ready for citizenship?
The query on the poll paper asks Italians in the event that they again lowering the interval of residence required to use for Italian citizenship, by naturalisation, from 10 years to 5.
The change proposed by the referendum would permit almost 1.5 million foreigners to acquire citizenship instantly, in line with an estimate by Idos, an Italian analysis centre. That would come with almost 300,000 minors, who would get hold of citizenship if their mother and father did.
About half of Italy’s 5.4 million overseas residents may very well be eligible to use for citizenship if the vote is handed.
The vote comes as Meloni has tightened citizenship legal guidelines, making it exhausting for resident immigrants to acquire nationality.
At present, immigrants from international locations exterior the EU can apply for citizenship solely after 10 years of uninterrupted residency in Italy.
What’s extra, the youngsters of lawful immigrants can apply for passports solely as soon as they’ve turned 18 and if they’ve constantly lived within the nation since delivery.
Then again, beneficiant bloodline legal guidelines allowed folks of Italian descent, even when distant, to acquire citizenship, serving to keep a hyperlink with the diaspora.
Between 2016 and 2023, for example, Italy granted citizenship to greater than 98,300 folks, largely dwelling in Latin America, primarily based on their claims of Italian ancestry.
With Italy’s birthrate in sharp decline, economists say the nation wants to draw extra foreigners to spice up its anaemic economic system.
Francesco Galietti, from political threat agency Coverage Sonar, informed the Reuters information company that retaining such guidelines tight was “an identification challenge” for Meloni, however she was additionally being pushed by companies to open up the borders of an ageing nation to overseas staff.
“On the one hand, there’s the cultural identification rhetoric, however on the opposite, there are potential issues paying pensions and an economic system that depends on manufacturing, which wants staff,” Galietti stated.
For context, Italy’s structure permits residents to repeal legal guidelines by way of referendums, a part of the system of checks and balances devised after Benito Mussolini’s fascist rule within the Nineteen Forties.
What are the opposite proposals within the referendum?
The referendum seeks to make it tougher to fireside staff and enhance compensation for these laid off by small companies, reversing a earlier regulation handed by a centre-left authorities a decade in the past.
One of many questions on the poll additionally addresses the pressing challenge of safety at work, restoring joint legal responsibility to each contractors and subcontractors for office accidents.
Campaigners gathered greater than 4.5 million signatures, in line with the Italian Basic Confederation of Labour (CGIL) union, excess of wanted to set off the referendum, which is able to comprise 5 questions – 4 on the labour market and one on citizenship.
“We wish to reverse a tradition that has prioritised the pursuits of enterprise over these of staff,” CGIL normal secretary Maurizio Landini informed the AFP information company.
![A dog on a leash waits as its owner votes in a booth for referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Milan, Italy, Sunday, June 8, 2025. [Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/AP-3-1749381760.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80)
Who backed the referendum and why?
The referendum was promoted by a coalition of comparatively small political events – Extra Europe, Possibile, the Italian Socialist Occasion, the Italian Radicals and the Communist Refoundation Occasion – and quite a few civil society associations.
It’s also being backed by the centre-left Democratic Occasion, which is jockeying for Italian citizenship legal guidelines to be extra aligned with EU-wide requirements.
Analysis exhibits that entry to citizenship has optimistic causal results.
Immigrants who naturalise expertise decrease unemployment charges, earn increased incomes and are much less prone to be overqualified for his or her jobs.
Against this, protracted ready intervals for naturalisation delay or dampen these results.
These findings help the declare that naturalisation will not be solely a reward, but in addition an essential catalyst for integration.
The vast majority of Italians assume that citizenship accelerates the mixing course of as effectively.
The final Eurobarometer on the mixing of immigrants stories that 87 p.c of Italians consider that buying citizenship is a vital issue for the profitable integration of immigrants in Italy.
Even when it passes, nonetheless, the reform is not going to have an effect on the regulation many think about deeply unfair – that youngsters born in Italy to overseas mother and father can’t request nationality till they attain 18.
Does PM Meloni again the brand new citizenship guidelines?
Opposition left-wing and centrist events, civil society teams and a number one commerce union have latched on to the problems of labour rights and Italy’s demographic woes as a method of difficult Meloni’s right-wing coalition authorities.
Meloni has stated she would present up on the polls however not forged a poll – a transfer extensively criticised by the left as antidemocratic, because it is not going to assist attain the mandatory threshold to make the vote legitimate.
Activists and opposition events have denounced the shortage of public debate on the measures, accusing the governing centre-right coalition of making an attempt to dampen curiosity in delicate points that instantly have an effect on immigrants and staff.
A Demopolis institute ballot final month estimated turnout could be within the vary of 31-39 p.c amongst Italy’s roughly 50 million electors, effectively in need of the required threshold.
Leaders of two of the governing coalition’s right-wing events, Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of the League, have opposed the vote.
The referendum is “harmful” and would prolong entry to citizenship “indiscriminately”, Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, stated in Might.
How important is the referendum?
Supporters say this reform would convey Italy’s citizenship regulation consistent with many different European international locations, selling better social integration for long-term residents.
It could additionally permit quicker entry to civil and political rights, comparable to the proper to vote, eligibility for public employment and freedom of motion throughout the EU.
Italy can also be confronting certainly one of Europe’s most acute demographic crises.
Its inhabitants is ageing quickly, with a couple of quarter of Italians aged above 65 years and simply 12 p.c aged 14 or youthful. The referendum may ease a few of these pressures.
