Italy has always been remarkably good at producing Italians abroad. Recognising Italians at home, particularly those whose parents came from somewhere else, remains a more complicated exercise.
A new parliamentary debate is bringing that contradiction back into focus.
As Elaine Allaby reports in The Local, Italian lawmakers have begun discussing a proposal that would make citizenship harder to obtain and expand the circumstances in which acquired citizenship could be revoked.
The legislation, promoted by the League, would introduce additional grounds for refusing citizenship applications, strengthen certain language and integration requirements, and widen the range of serious criminal convictions that could lead to revocation.
The proposal is not yet law. But its implications go beyond the technicalities of immigration policy.
Consider a child born in Italy to foreign parents.
The child attends an Italian school, speaks Italian, grows up with Italian friends and may never have lived anywhere else. Yet birthplace and upbringing alone do not automatically make that child an Italian citizen.
Under the existing system, someone born in Italy to foreign parents can generally declare their intention to acquire citizenship upon reaching adulthood, subject to requirements including continuous residence since birth and a strict application window.
The proposed changes would introduce additional exclusions and procedural restrictions.
Supporters argue that citizenship must carry responsibilities and that serious criminal conduct should have consequences. These are legitimate questions for any state to consider, particularly when nationality creates a permanent legal relationship between an individual and a country.
Opponents question whether broadening restrictions and introducing further tests risks making an already demanding process even more uncertain.
But beyond the political disagreement lies a deeper question.
What actually makes someone Italian?
Is it ancestry? Language? Cultural familiarity? A lifetime of residence? Participation in the country’s economic and social life?
Italy has traditionally given considerable importance to descent. Although recent reforms have tightened the rules for some descendants born abroad, ancestry remains central to the country’s conception of citizenship.
Meanwhile, someone whose entire personal history is rooted in Italy may still face a lengthy legal process before being recognised as belonging to it.
This distinction between citizenship and lived identity is not uniquely Italian. Many countries struggle with it.
For Italy, however, the contradiction is particularly striking.
A country with a long history of emigration, a substantial diaspora and an ageing population increasingly dependent on immigration must decide how it understands national belonging in the decades ahead.
The question is not whether every application should be approved, nor whether citizenship should be immune from clearly defined legal consequences.
It is whether the country can develop a coherent understanding of membership that recognises both historical connections and contemporary realities.
Because nationality is more than a document.
And belonging does not necessarily begin on the day the document arrives.
ITALIC | Our view
Italy has spent generations exporting Italians. It still seems rather uncertain about recognising those it has been importing.
The interesting question is not simply who deserves a passport. It is whether a country can afford to maintain such a complicated relationship with people who have already made it their home.