Citizenship, Emilia: obstacle race, but a great emotion to swear on the Constitution

Getting to swear an oath on the Constitution and receive the Italian flag is a hurdle for many foreign students who have lived in Italy for years. This is the case of Emilia Sfichi, a young Romanian student, in Italy for twenty years, who obtained her citizenship after a long bureaucratic process, delayed by Covid and the doubling of the time required to obtain it even for EU citizens.

"I am 22 years old and have been in Italy since I was two, so I have been living here for twenty years. I am a master's student in International Relations at Roma Tre University in the capital, while I did my three-year degree in Political Science in Cosenza'.

The first to apply for citizenship for the young student was her mother when Emilia was 14 years old. 'The path was really long and tortuous. Because a minor,' recalls Emilia, 'you have to apply for citizenship through your parent. When I applied for it, the time needed to obtain it was two years (Romania has been an EU Member State since 1 January 2007, ed.), but the timeframe was lengthened because during the Conte-Salvini government, through a decree, citizenship was passed from two to four years. So doing the math, I could manage to get my citizenship in time, within 18. But another obstacle presented itself before me, namely the Covid emergency. During the emergency, when everything came to a standstill, the citizenship process also came to a standstill. And my citizenship did not arrive by 17 May, my birthday. I lost the first opportunity.

As an adult, Emilia submitted her second application for citizenship, and risked not being sworn in because she did not receive the official communication on time. She was able to take the oath ten days before the expiry of the six months given by law. She had not received the notice of citizenship approval in time.

"I actually feel more Italian now because I grew up here, I went to school here, I am now a native Italian speaker, I have acquired an Italian way of thinking. On the other hand, the relationship with my culture of origin is still there, I feel it and I also look for it. But I no longer practise the Romanian language, my way of thinking is Italian. Becoming an Italian citizen has brought me great joy, a great sense of belonging, a great sense of recognition that I did not see and did not find either in Romania or Italy before citizenship. Obtaining citizenship was a confirmation of what I felt I was'.