Italy approved the law tightening the rules for people with Italian heritage to get passports.
Earlier, anyone with Italian ancestors lived after 17. March 1861. years – when the kingdom of Italy created – qualified to be the citizen under “Jus Sanguinis”, or the descending law on blood.
According to the changed law, which was ratified by Parliament on Tuesday, the applicants for the Italian passport must now have one parent or Grandma and Grandma who was a citizen after birth.
The government said it changed the rules to “improve” the connection between Italy and citizens abroad, avoid “abuse” and “commercialization” of passports and release resources to clear resources to clear the residual applications.
From the end of 2014. until the end of 2024. years, the number of citizens residing abroad increased by 40%, of about 4.6 million to 6.4 million, the government said.
At the end of March, when the Prime Minister Giorgia Melonija introduced the law, there were more than 60,000 legal proceedings for citizenship verification.
The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the change “released resources to make consular services more efficiently, to the extent that they could be intended exclusively to those who have the right need, based on their concrete connections with Italy”.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani said that the principle “will not be lost” and the offspring of Italians will still be able to become citizens, but “precise boundaries will be placed, especially to avoid abuse or” commercialization “of Italian passports”
“Citizenship must be a serious matter,” he said.
