The current law on citizenship, n. 91/1992, penalizes young children of immigrants not allowing them to enjoy full recognition of civil and political rights and keeping them in the legal status of “Itali-ans with a residence permit”, risking, as already mentioned, to feed disappointments and forms of resentment.6The right to be citizens and the rights guaranteed by being citizens, in fact, are of fundamental importance for the second generation and young people of foreign ori-gin, forced for years, once they turn 18, to renew their residence permit given by the condition of “non-immigrant foreigners” in which they find themselves.
Organized through the Network G2-Seconde Generazioni,7 the second generations have advanced, over the years, different requests for the reform of the law in addition to the request for changes to the regulations so that they contain clear and explicit criteria regarding the methods of obtaining the citizenship, eliminating or at least reducing the high level of discretion of the public administration officers. As evidenced by the work of the Network G2 Seconde Generazioni, moreover, besides the enjoyment of rights, the citizenship is also an important channel of participation: a way to be recognized as equal, to be creators of their own destiny and to give an active contribution to the community. The participation guaranteed by citizenship consists in the “right to have rights”, as Hannah Arendt8claimed, to have a voice, an important possibility to state their opinion, an instrument that
5 Ibid.
6 E. Colombo, L. Domaneschi, C. Marchetti, Nuovi italiani e trasformazioni della cittadinanza (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2009).
7 http://www.secondegenerazioni.it
8 H. Arendt, Le Origini del Totalitarismo (Milano: Edizioni di Comunità, 1996), p. 413.
supports personal empowerment and the ability to participate without undergoing discretionary discrimination.9 Being able to express, as citizens, their opinion means having the opportunity to be known, to defend against improper accusations or stereotyped and negative representations and to build, on a par, interactions with Italians as a new mixed political, social and cultural community.10
Young people of foreign origin who have lived in the country the whole path of socialization from infancy to adulthood, remain ex-cluded, however, from the granting of citizenship as this is not auto-matically conferred, but is subject to the possession of certain require-ments. The law on citizenship in Italy is, in fact, articulated around the principle of ius sanguinis, the “right of blood” that allows children of Italians to obtain citizenship only directly from their parents, “inherit-ing” from them. The children of immigrants who are born on the Italian territory in order for obtaining the citizenship must stay in Italy uninterruptedly until the age of eighteen, and from that moment they have only one year to present the application for the acquisition of cit-izenship in their municipality of residence. After this year, if the ap-plication for citizenship has not been submitted, the second genera-tions must follow the same procedure as their parents, i.e. stay in Italy with a residence permit for study, work or family reasons, or other-wise, they have to leave the country.11The 1992 Citizenship Law has been the subject of debates and reform proposals for several years.
In 2012, the G2 Network, with the support of the Soros Founda-tion, drew up the Dossier “G2 Chiama Italia: Cittadinanza, rispondi!”, within the G2 Parlamenta project, which, through various awareness-raising activities, addressed to Members of the Italian Par-liament, going from the distribution of dossiers and documentation, to
9 E. Colombo, L. Domaneschi, C. Marchetti, Una nuova generazione di italiani: L'idea di cittadinanza tra i giovani figli di immigrati (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2009), pp. 24-25.
10 V. Premazzi, “Una nuova generazione “diversamente” italiana”, F. Cappè (ed.), Generazione Erasmus. L'Italia dalle nuove idee (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2011), pp. 101-108.
11V. Premazzi, “Secolarizzazione e nuove forme di protagonismo e religiosità della seconda generazione musulmana in Italia”, G. Salmeri G., M. Díez (eds.), Troppa religione o troppo poca?: Cristiani e musulmani alla prova della secolarizza-zione (Padova: Marsilio, 2016), pp. 106-116.
the creation of videos and other communication materials, was aimed at providing an updated picture on the current status of the children of immigrants in Italy. Moreover, two national petitions submitted by the G2 Network (along with 21 other organizations12) to the Chamber of Deputies in the context of the Campaign “L'Italia sono anch'io”, a na-tional campaign for the rights of citizenship, on the 150th anniversary of the Italian unification. In addition to the two bills it is important to report the awareness and information campaign “18 anni in…Comune”, carried out by the G2 Network in collaboration with ANCI and Save the children, for the new adults born in Italy and en-titled to citizenship. The initiative aimed to urge the Municipalities to promptly inform children born in Italy from foreign parents of this op-portunity when they come of age. Following the campaign “18 anni in…Comune”, a handbook was also made available free of charge in all the Municipalities and on ANCI website, Save the children and G2 network, with all the new regulations concerning the acquisition of Italian citizenship for the second generations. Furthermore, the ex-planations introduced by the implementation of the Law n. 98/2013 also known as “Decreto del fare” has institutionalized the objectives of the Campaign. Then, through the application of the rules contained in the Law, several municipalities have also facilitated the preliminary phase of the request for citizenship. Article 4, paragraph 2, of the law n. 91/92 provides, in fact, that “the foreigner born in Italy, who has resided legally without interruption until reaching the age of majority, becomes a citizen if he/she declares that he/she wants to acquire Italian citizenship within a year of the said date”.
The implementation of the Law n. 98/2013, art. 33 “Semplificazione del procedimento per l'acquisto della cittadinanza per lo straniero nato in Italia”, states, at paragraph 1, that, “for the purposes of the acquisition of Italian citizenship by the foreigner born in Italy and residing there uninterruptedly for eighteen years, any breaches attributable to the parents or to the offices of the public administration are not
attribut-12 Acli, Arci, Asgi-Associazione studi giuridici sull'immigrazione, Caritas Italiana, Centro Astalli, Cgil, Cnca-Coordinamento nazionale delle comunità d'ac-coglienza, Comitato 1° Marzo, Coordinamento nazionale degli enti locali per la pace e i diritti umani, Emmaus Italia, Fcei –Federazione Chiese Evangeliche In Italia, Fondazione Migrantes, Libera, Lunaria, Il Razzismo Brutta Storia, Rete G2– Seconde Generazioni, Sei Ugl, Tavola della Pace, Terra del Fuoco.
able to the interested applicant” and that he/she can demonstrate pos-session of the requirements with any other appropriate documenta-tion.13
The extensive interpretation of article 4 of Law n. 91/92 was ac-cording to Mohamed Tailmoun,14spokesperson of the G2 Network, an important result because it authorizes the offices of the public ad-ministration to also consider as evidence of the uninterrupted presence in Italy other documents in addition to registration, such as school at-tendance, certificates obtained or certificates of attendance of courses, or registration from the pediatrician/doctor, interpreting the article in favour of the applicant. Another important result of the campaign “18 anni in … Comune” was an improved relation between many mayors (and administrations) and second-generation young people and the de-velopment of information offices dedicated to the second generation, as in Milan, in 2013, the creation of the G. Lab, laboratory of urban citizenship, an information desk about citizenship, work and study for young people, families, teachers and cultural operators. All these cam-paigns and awareness activities led in the summer of 2015 to the ap-proval by the Constitutional Affairs Commission of the Chamber of Deputies of the unified text of citizenship reform. The text collected the 24 bills of law on the amendment of the law n. 91/92, introducing the principle of ius soli temperato: citizenship to those born in Italy from parents legally residing for at least 5 years, and the ius culturae for kids who arrive in Italy before the age of 12.
The proposal of reform was approved by the Chamber of Depu-ties, in October 2015 and the 15 of June 2017 the proposal arrived in the Senate, where it caused chaos initiated by the Northern League party senators that following this episode submitted new proposals for amendments —reaching the number of 48,408 requests of changes.
Since then, the debate has always been postponed and then periodic-ally considered in the summer or before Christmas, on the eve of the closing of parliamentary debates. This was, according to the leaders of
13 V. Premazzi, “Seconde generazioni e identità religiosa alla prova della cit-tadinanza”, A. Ferrari (ed.), Libertà religiosa e cittadinanza. Percorsi nella società plurale (Padova: Marsilio, 2017), pp. 24-36.
14 Interview by the author, 21 July 2015.
the G2 Network, a sign of the little attention given to the topic,15but at the same time it was also a sign of the strategic importance of the issue also for electoral purposes and consensus.
According to G. Zincone,16 the ideological false contrast between citizenship conceived mainly as an instrument of integration (typical of the left) and citizenship conceived as a reward for accom-plished integration (typical of the right) is still prominent in Italian political discourse, as well as in that of European countries: “it is evid-ent that, on one hand, nationality legislation has always required some signs of either potential (ius soli, long residence) or actual integration (observance of the law, knowledge of the language of communication) and that, on the other hand, a generous citizenship regime conveys a public message of acceptance of immigrants as a welcome part of the population and can consequently help integration, though it is in no way definitive”.17
This is what expressed by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, in-terviewed by the newspaper La Repubblica, in June 2017, stating that
“granting citizenship to children born in Italy from immigrant parents is the right thing to do and will make Italy safer”. The Prime Minister also replied to those who “agitate the spectre of a threat to our security in a wholly unjustified way” that counter-terrorism experience teaches that the only way to root out and prevent radicalism is social inclu-sion, not marginalization and discrimination, “to those who stoke such fears, we must say extending citizenship to these children. It is not just a matter of conscience and civil rights, but also one of security”.
But Italy was not the only place in Europe to face the citizen-ship issue: the recent significant migration waves in some parts of the world have in fact forced many affected countries to discuss and rene-gotiate their citizenship policies. These have included moves to more restrictive as well as to more generous policies for granting citizenship to immigrants.
15 Interview by the author, 21 July 2015.
16 G. Zincone, Citizenship Policy Making in Mediterranean EU States: Italy, EUDO Citizenship Observatory (Firenze: EUI, 2010).
17 Ibid., p. 27.
In Germany,18for example, the change came into force in 2000, for the first time introducing ius soli. Citizenship was formerly based on ius sanguinis and naturalisation with strict conditions. In Portugal19 in 2006 ius soli (which had been radically restricted in the 1970s, prior to which pure ius soli applied to all born on any Portuguese territory) was reintroduced in forms of double ius soli and facilitated naturalisation, based on parental residence of five years and four years of the child's schooling. Luxembourg introduced double ius soli in 2009 (including for those under eighteen in 2009), and, as dual nationality was admitted at the same time, this constituted a signific-ant change with an almost immediate effect.20 The Greek parliament on March 11 2010 passed the legislation that grants ius soli citizenship at birth on the basis of parental residence, double ius soli (provided parents are resident) and provides for declaration when they come of age (also on the basis of conditions of parental residence and the child's education in Greece).21In 1999 Austria introduced a form of ius soli citizenship for the first time by offering facilitated naturalisa-tion at age eighteen.22In 2002 Slovenia introduced facilitated natural-isation at age of eighteen by form for children resident since birth. In 2003 Finland introduced an option at majority.23