Citizenship, Referendums, and the Missed Opportunity
The Italian referendum on citizenship reform ended just as many had anticipated: without a quorum, without a real campaign, and without the country truly noticing.
La versione originale di questo articolo - in Italiano - è stata pubblicata nella newsletter ‘Esco quando voglio’.
The subject deserved far more attention. It is real, urgent, and present in the daily lives of millions of people who, despite living in Italy for years, are still not officially recognized as Italian. But, as often happens, politics turned a civil battle into an ideological showcase. The Right opted for an active boycott of a vote that was doomed even before it began. The Left, meanwhile, believed it could force a national conversation by turning to a now-ineffective instrument: the referendum. And they did so at a historical moment in which the government, by definition, would never have accepted this "question."
To make matters worse, the referendum was submitted to the public "almost at the beach," alongside other questions closely tied to union issues that felt distant to most.
Living abroad, I personally abstained from the other four referendum questions. But on this one, I voted "yes" — even though I knew it wouldn’t matter much. I did so with a sense of bitterness. I didn’t identify with the campaign or with the often self-referential tone of its leaders. The challenge was clearly impossible: too much institutional silence and an Italy that was distracted, uninformed, torn between sunny beaches and deep political disillusionment. And above all, an Italy disconnected from a topic — "others who cannot vote" — that was unlikely to ignite any passion. If I had based my vote on the radical-chic, paternalistic tone of a certain Left, I might have even voted "no."
And yet I voted. Not for the political faction behind the campaign, but for a principle: the recognition of a journey. Of lives built in a country — Italy — that is not always known for being the most welcoming. The journey of people who pay taxes, raise children who are Italian (or wish to be recognized as such), open businesses, work in our hospitals, speak our dialects. And yet, even after ten or fifteen years, they must wait for the State's approval to feel like they belong.
But perhaps the real question today is this: what does citizenship truly mean? Does it change lived experience? Or is it just a document? Does it guarantee rights? Or does it provide a sense of belonging?
I’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve lived in the United Kingdom for nearly thirty years. It’s where I’ve worked, built my life. And yet I only seriously considered applying for British citizenship in 2019 — not in 2003, when I first became eligible. Why? Because before Brexit, as an EU citizen, I had the same rights as a British citizen. Like me, thousands of Poles, Romanians, Spaniards felt fully included. Then Brexit came, and for the first time, I sensed the risk of exclusion... and the need to have my "Britishness" legally recognized. But that little passport booklet didn’t make me feel more at home. On the contrary, paradoxically, I feel more foreign now. The British, even unconsciously, have a way of reminding you that you're an "acquired" citizen. Citizenship didn’t change the experience. It only changed the legal protections.
That’s why the Italian case is so different. Those applying for Italian citizenship today aren't doing it out of convenience. At least not those who arrived as foreigners. Maybe it is convenient for those applying from thousands of kilometers away as descendants of Italians — themselves now restricted by this government. But for those who came from outside the EU to build a life, they’ve endured years of queues and often a lukewarm Italian welcome. I've seen it firsthand with my wife: we are still a country that starts off closed, at least to those we don’t perceive as richer than us. We bend over backward to accommodate Americans. But when people come from the East or the Global South, we feel the need to assert superiority. EU citizens don’t want our passport — they don’t need it. It’s those who have chosen to stay, put down roots, raise families, build businesses, learn the language — those who aren’t going anywhere — who ask to be recognized. Not because they seek favors. But because they seek dignity.
Five years is not a short time. Ten can feel like too much. But above all, the wait is not just bureaucratic — it is symbolic. That’s why this referendum represented an opportunity. And precisely for that reason, it was a grave political and strategic error to entrust it to the referendum process.
A blunt weapon, fragile and now more divisive than democratic. A tool that only works if the entire country feels its weight. And here, Italy wasn’t ready. Not necessarily because it was hostile, but because no one prepared the ground. No one explained. No one built a narrative. The Left dragged millions of legitimate hopes into a battle they knew was lost from the start.
It was like bringing a knife to a gunfight. And the "almost Italians" were left holding the match.
But it’s not over. The defeat isn’t final. On the contrary, this failure can be a lesson. The issue will return — whether we like it or not. It will return for demographic reasons: because foreigners are having more children than Italians, founding more businesses (proportionally), and are essential to many core services and even to stabilizing our pension system. It will return not as a political slogan or a yes/no vote, but as a necessary political maturity that will eventually claim its space.
Yes, there is a cultural and integration challenge. But often, that challenge is used as an excuse not to admit a deeper truth: that as a country, we are not fully ready to confront diversity. And I don’t believe those who claim we would lose our Christian identity. As a Catholic, I might even agree. But Italy hasn’t been a Catholic country in practice for decades. We blame the Church for holding us back, and yet it is often the first to welcome the stranger. We don’t fear losing our culture by welcoming others. What we fear is the confrontation with difference — as if we were jealous guardians of an Italian-ness we ourselves can no longer define, beyond food perhaps.
Diversity, in the end, unsettles us because it forces us to ask who we really are. And maybe that is precisely the point: to rediscover what it means to be Italian — in Italy or abroad — and to understand whether our citizenship still has meaning.
Italy may have already lost too much time. But it still has the chance — if it wants it — to prove that citizenship means recognizing those who are already here. Those who chose to act. Those who already belong to this country, even without the piece of paper to prove it.