Italians began voting Sunday in a two-day referendum on loosening citizenship requirements and bolstering labor protections, amid calls from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government to boycott the measures it opposes.
The five proposals on the ballot were not expected to pass, in light of low turnout and the requirement that over 50% of voters participate to validate the referendum.
Currently, a non-EU adult resident without marriage or blood ties to Italy must live in the country for 10 years before they can apply for citizenship – a process which can then take years more.
The referendum proposal, triggered by a grassroots campaign led by NGOs, would cut this to five years, putting Italy in line with Germany and France.
Campaigners say around 2.5 million people could benefit from the reform, which is being backed by the center-left Democratic Party.
Meloni, whose far-right Brothers of Italy party has prioritized cutting irregular immigration even as her government has increased the number of migrant work visas, is strongly against it.
She said Thursday that the current system "is an excellent law, among the most open, in the sense that we have for years been among the European nations that grant the highest number of citizenships each year."
More than 213,500 people acquired Italian citizenship in 2023, double the number from 2020 and accounting for one-fifth of the total number of naturalizations in EU countries, according to the bloc's statistics.
More than 90% were from outside the bloc, mostly from Albania and Morocco, as well as Argentina and Brazil – two countries with large Italian immigrant communities.
Ministers agreed in March to restrict the rights to citizenship of those claiming blood ties to Italy from four to two generations.
Meloni and her coalition partners encouraged voters to boycott the referendum, which would invalidate it if it fails to clear the 50% of eligible voters turnout.
As of midday Sunday, national participation was at 7.41%, according to the Interior Ministry. Voting was to continue through Monday afternoon.
Casting a ballot for the first time in his life at a Rome polling station was Giovanni Puccini, 18, who called Meloni's instruction to abstain "disrespectful" of past sacrifices by Italians.
"You have to vote because in the past so many people fought, even died, for this right," he said.
His friend Pierre Donadio, 21, said less stringent citizenship laws were needed in the country, to boost diversity and avoid "being too closed up in itself."
Even were it to pass, the reform would not affect a migration law many consider unfair: that children born in Italy to foreign parents cannot request nationality until they reach 18.
Prominent rapper Ghali, who was born in Milan to Tunisian parents, has been an outspoken advocate of changing the law for children. He urged fans to back Sunday's vote as a step in the right direction.
"With a 'Yes' we ask that five years of life here are enough, not 10, to be part of this country," he wrote on Instagram.
The ballot includes one question on citizenship. The four others are on increasing protections for workers who are dismissed, in precarious situations or involved in workplace accidents.
Those changes were being pushed by the left-wing CGIL trade union.
"We want to reverse a culture that has prioritised the interests of business over those of workers," CGIL general secretary Maurizio Landini told AFP.
The Democratic Party is also backing the proposals – even if it introduced some of the laws while in office in the past.
The proposals took aim at measures in a so-called Jobs Act, passed a decade ago by the government of the Democratic Party prime minister, Matteo Renzi, in order to liberalise the labour market.
Supporters say the act boosted employment but detractors say it made work more precarious.
Under new leadership, the Democratic Party, which is polling behind Meloni's Brothers of Italy, is seeking to woo working-class voters by backing the referendum reform.
