ANSA News

Tajani reiterates need to reform citizenship rules

Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani reiterated on Tuesday that “we need a reform on the rules of citizenship” that will enable the children on migrants to become Italian before they turn 18.

The mooted reform has caused tension within the ruling coalition, with Transport Minister Matteo Salvini’s League staunchly against it and Premier Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party cold to the idea too.

Tajani told Mediaset television that he had given the parliamentary groups of his centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party the job of studying a proposal for a ‘ius scholae’ (Latin for law of the school) reform to grant Italian citizenship to the children of immigrants once they have completed mandatory schooling in Italy, rather than wait until they are 18 to apply as at present.

‘It is a matter of feeling Italian,” he said.

“We will prepare the bill and we will show it to our allies,” he continued, adding that the government’s current priority was the 2025 budget bill.