Ius Soli’s Long Way to Rome?

Abstract

Demographic changes in Italy over the last decades – growing number of immigrants, shrinking and aging population – have made it increasingly urgent to reform the citizenship law in order to adapt it to the international context. The Italian politics and media focus on new arrivals and on stopping illegal immigration, while many foreign communities (e.g. Moroccan, Albanian, Chinese, Romanian) are already living and socialising in Italy with their second generations, many of them without Italian citizenship. The proportion and visibility of the population concerned is increasing, but the fragmented Italian political system is unable to reach a consensus on the citizenship law reform, so the introduction of the (conditional) ius soli – which has been on the agenda for years – is lagging behind.