Over 1.4 million could claim Italian citizenship if referendum passes, study says
Around 1.42 million non-EU residents would qualify for Italian citizenship should voters approve a pivotal reform of the country's naturalisation laws in the June 8th-9th referendum, Idos said.
Under current laws, non-EU nationals need to prove that they've legally lived in the country for a minimum of 10 years to apply for citizenship.
The proposed reform would halve the 10-year requirement, meaning that non-EU citizens could apply after five years of legal residency.
The study from Idos said that nearly 1.14 million adults and 229,000 minors would immediately qualify for Italian citizenship if the reform were to pass.
An additional 55,000 minors could automatically acquire citizenship following their parents' naturalisation, it added.
Idos said its estimates were more conservative than earlier projections by referendum campaigners, as they excluded non-EU nationals whose countries do not allow dual citizenship and EU citizens, who can already apply for naturalisation after four years of residency.
The research centre also estimated that up to 700,000 non-EU residents would not be able to apply for citizenship under the new rules due to them not meeting current income requirements.
To claim citizenship by residency, applicants must have a yearly income of at least €8,263.31 if they're not married and without children, or €11,362.05 if they're married, plus an additional €516 for any child they may have.
The above income requirements wouldn't change under the proposed reform.
As with all referendums in Italy, the upcoming vote will need a voter turnout of over 50 percent for its result to be valid. If this 'quorum' (or threshold) is not met, the referendum won't be considered valid, whatever its result may be.
So far, most Italian news reports have said that it's unlikely that the vote will reach the quorum, noting that voter turnout in referendums has historically been low in Italy.
Italian media have also expressed concerns that the abstention rate may be particularly high in the upcoming referendum, as members of the ruling hard-right coalition, which strongly opposes the citizenship reform, have publicly called on supporters to boycott the vote in recent weeks.
The ruling coalition's calls to abstain from voting have sparked outrage among the opposition's ranks, with many accusing the government of undermining citizen participation in public life.
Riccardo Magi, leader of the centre-left +Europa party, said that voting 'is the foundation of democracy' and 'in a normal country, government institutions should do everything to encourage [it]'.
Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, said that the government's calls to boycott the vote were a 'betrayal of the constitutional principles that establish voting as a civic duty'.
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