The undersecretary of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Tripodi, said this Friday (13) that the recognition of the Italian citizenship by blood law does not provide for “discretionality”, that is, it does not provide room for interpretation for the authority responsible for the process.
The statement was made in response to questions from the opposition regarding citizenship applications presented by the family of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
“There are two requirements established by our legal system (for citizenship by right of blood): descent from an Italian citizen and the absence of an event that interrupts the transmission of citizenship in the line of descent”, said Tripodi, after a question from parliamentarians of the center-left Democratic Party (PD).
“Therefore, no discretion or assessments are foreseen on the part of the administration in recognizing the Italian citizenship jus sanguinis. The person responsible for the procedure must only check whether the interested party meets the requirements”, added the undersecretary, highlighting that this discipline applies to “all applicants”.
Tripodi also reiterated that Bolsonaro has not yet asked Italian citizenship, information that had already been released by the European country's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, throughout the week.
In turn, the senator Flávio Bolsonaro and federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, sons of the former president, filed their requests at the Italian embassy in Brasília in 2020.
As they are descendants of Italians, they seek recognition of citizenship by blood right. One Bolsonaro's paternal great-grandfather was from Anguillara Veneta, a municipality in northern Italy that granted honorary citizenship to the former president in 2021. His maternal grandparents were from Lucca, Tuscany. (With information from Ansa)
FOLLOW-US
