Italy citizenship referendum polarises country

Sonny Olumati was born in Rome and has lived in Italy all his life but the country he calls home does not recognise him as its own.

To Italy, Sonny is Nigerian, like his passport, and the 39-year-old is only welcome as long as his latest residence permit.

“I’ve been born here. I will live here. I will die here,” the dancer and activist tells me in what he calls “macaroni” Italian-English beneath the palm trees of a scruffy Roman park.

“But not having citizenship is like… being rejected from your country. And I don’t think this is a feeling we should have”.

That is why Sonny and others have been campaigning for a “Yes” vote in a national referendum on Sunday and Monday that proposes halving the time required to apply for Italian citizenship.

Cutting the wait from 10 years to five would bring this country in line with most others in Europe.

Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s hard-right prime minister, has announced she will boycott the vote, declaring the citizenship law already “excellent” and “very open”.

Other parties allied to her are calling on Italians to go to the beach instead of the polling station.

Sonny will not be taking part either. Without citizenship, he is not entitled to vote.

The question of who gets to be Italian is a sensitive one.

Large numbers of migrants and refugees arrive in the country each year helped across the Mediterranean from North Africa by smuggling gangs.

Meloni’s populist government has made a big deal about cutting the number of arrivals.

But this referendum is aimed at those who have travelled legally for work to a country with a rapidly shrinking and ageing population.

The aim is limited: to speed up the process for getting citizenship, not ease the strict criteria.

“Knowledge of the Italian language, not having criminal charges, continuous residence et cetera – all the various requirements remain the same,” explains Carla Taibi of the liberal party More Europe, one of several backers of the referendum.

The reform would affect long-term foreign residents already employed in Italy: from those on factory production lines in the north to those caring for pensioners in plush Rome neighbourhoods.

Their children aged under 18 would also be naturalised.

Up to 1.4 million people could qualify for citizenship immediately, with some estimates ranging higher.

“These people live in Italy, study and work and contribute. This is about changing the perception of them so they are not strangers anymore – but Italian,” argues Taibi.

The reform would also have practical implications.

As a non-Italian, Sonny cannot apply for a public sector job, and even struggled to get a driving license.

When he was booked for hit reality TV show Fame Island last year, he ended up arriving two weeks late on set in Honduras because he had had so many problems getting the right paperwork.

For a long time, Meloni ignored the referendum entirely.

Italy’s publicly owned media, run by a close Meloni ally, have also paid scant attention to the vote.

There is no substantive “No” campaign, making it hard to have a balanced debate.

But the real reason appears strategic: for a referendum to be valid, more than half of all voters need to turn out.

“They don’t want to raise awareness of the significance of the referendum,” Professor Roberto D’Alimonte of Luis University in Rome explains. “That’s rational, to make sure that the 50% threshold won’t be reached.”

The prime minister eventually announced she would turn up at a polling station “to show respect for the ballot box” – but refuse to cast a vote.

“When you disagree, you also have the option of abstaining,” Meloni told a TV chat show this week, after critics accused her of disrespecting democracy.

Italy’s citizenship system was “excellent”, she argued, already granting citizenship to more foreign nationals than most countries in Europe: 217,000 last year, according to the national statistics agency, Istat.

But about 30,000 of those were Argentines with Italian ancestry on the other side of the world, unlikely even to visit.

Meanwhile, Meloni’s coalition partner, Roberto Vannacci of the far-right League, accused those behind the referendum of “selling off our citizenship and erasing our identity”.

I ask Sonny why he thinks his own application for citizenship has taken over two decades.

“It’s racism,” he replies immediately.

At one point his file was lost completely, and he has now been told his case is “pending”.

“We have ministers who talk about white supremacy – racial replacement of Italy,” the activist recalls a 2023 comment by the agriculture minister from Meloni’s own party.

“They don’t want black immigration and we know it. I was born here 39 years ago so I know what I say.”

It is an accusation the prime minister has denied repeatedly.

Insaf Dimassi defines herself as “Italian without citizenship”.

“Italy let me grow up and become the person I am today, so not being seen as a citizen is extremely painful and frustrating,” she explains from the northern city of Bologna where she is studying for a PhD.

Insaf’s father travelled to Italy for work when she was a baby, and she and her mother then joined him. Her parents finally got Italian citizenship 20 days after Insaf turned 18. That meant she had to apply for herself from scratch, including proving a steady income.

Insaf chose to study instead.

“I arrived here at nine months old, and maybe at 33 or 34 – if all goes well – I can finally be an Italian citizen,” she says, exasperated.

She remembers exactly when the significance of her “outsider” status hit home: it was when she was asked to run for election alongside a candidate for mayor in her hometown.

When she shared the news with her parents, full of excitement, they had to remind her she was not Italian and was not eligible.

“They say it’s a matter of meritocracy to be a citizen, that you have to earn it. But more than being myself, what do I have to demonstrate?” Insaf wants to know.

“Not being allowed to vote, or be represented, is being invisible.”

On the eve of the referendum, students in Rome wrote a call to the polls on the cobbles of a city square.

“Vote ‘YES’ on the 8th and 9th [of June],” they spelled out in giant cardboard letters.

With a government boycott and such meagre publicity, the chances of hitting the 50% turnout threshold seem slim.

But Sonny argues that this vote is just the beginning.

“Even if they vote ‘No’, we will stay here – and think about the next step,” he says. “We have to start to talk about the place of our community in this country.”

Additional reporting by Giulia Tommasi