On December 14th, the new citizenship bill was drastically amended by the Constitutional Committee of the Chamber of Deputies following proposals by Isabella Bertolini, an MP of Berlusconi’s party Popolo delle Libertà (see). The most interesting aspect is that the new text is now even more restrictive than the present law, which was adopted in 1992 . The amended bill abandons all the innovative features of the Sarubbi-Granata bill (strengthening of ius soli and shortening of residence period for naturalisation) but keeps the integration and language requirements for naturalisation, in addition to introducing new conditions (e.g. the possession of an EU long-term-residence permit for the naturalisation of third country nationals or the requirement for second generations born in Italy to have successfully completed compulsory education recognised by the Italian state in order to access citizenship at age 18).

A plenary discussion of the new bill was scheduled for December 21 and 22 but has been postponed. Papers report that the discussion will continue only after regional elections in March 2010 (read a report in La Repubblica and see Isabella Bertolini’s homepage).

 

UPDATE: On January 12, 2010 the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies decided to send back for revision the bill on the reform of citizenship law to the Constitutional Affairs (CA) Committee. The text to be modified was adopted in December by the CA Committee following MP Isabella Bertolini’s restrictive proposals on ius soli acquisition and naturalization. The CA Committee is now expected to come up with a new text in April.

 

Read a commentary by EUDO Citizenship expert Giovanna Zincone in La Stampa, 2 January 2010.

Read the 23 October 2009 EUDO Citizenship report about the Sarubbi-Granata bill.

Go to Italian country profile on EUDO Citizenship.