Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte defended on Monday (9) the need for a review of the country's legislation on the recognition of citizenship by blood right (the right of blood) to descendants of Italians.
The statement was made during Conte's speech to ask for a vote of confidence from the Chamber of Deputies for his second government, the result of an alliance between the populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) and the social-democratic Democratic Party (PD).
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“Also the law on acquisition of Italian citizenship by citizens residing abroad and descending from an Italian family seems to deserve a review that, on the one hand, removes some discriminatory norms and, on the other, introduces new criteria in relation to those in force”, said the Prime Minister.
Conte, however, did not give further details about his plans. Currently, every child of an Italian can request recognition of citizenship, but there is a barrier for descendants of women who married foreigners before the Constitution came into force, in 1948.
There is already a proposal in the Chamber of Deputies, signed by the Italian-Brazilian Luis Roberto Lorenzato (League), to overturn this limitation, but the project has not yet been voted on. Parliament has also discussed a proposal that provided that only descendants of up to the second generation would be recognized as Italians, but the text ended up shelved.
By Ansa Agency
