Forza Italia insists on ius scholae: bill in September, but allies stonewall

Forza Italia pulls straight ahead on the ius scholae and reiterates its will to present as soon as possible its own organic citizenship bill. The strategy is to proceed at the parliamentary level, instructing the offices to draft a text to submit to the government allies. Possibly by September, authoritative Azure sources say, but - given the resistance of the other government shareholders - the party's headquarters have put on the brakes. "The objective is to do it well," says spokesman Raffaele Nevi, "now the priority is to move forward with the manoeuvre and the measures subject to the initiatives" of the executive.

To date, in fact, the wall erected by FdI and Lega seems impassable. 'It is not a priority,' says Tommaso Foti from Fratelli d'Italia, 'it is not a topic that has been on the agenda until now, it is a summer topic'. An adjective identical to the one used by the leghist Nicola Molteni to dismiss the topic: Tajani's one for ius scholae "I think it is just a summer crush".

In the coming confrontation, however, the Azzurro party is determined to demonstrate to its allies that the system devised would not only be fairer, but also more stringent than the current one: to make it possible to apply for Italian citizenship after a 10-year course of study (i.e. after compulsory schooling) with a profit that certifies, among other things, knowledge of the Italian language and history. This criterion would replace the current one of 18 years of continuous residence age, to "abolish any automatism in the granting of citizenship".

If the political road traced by Tajani for FI is clear (the secretary has already given input to the heads of the House and Senate groups to start working on the text), the ius scholae process is studded with obstacles, both internal and external to the majority. "The text of our proposal is public, you can find it on our website and it will be deposited on 9 September," Action leader Carlo Calenda announced on X, throwing down the gauntlet towards the Forzisti. It is an amendment to the security bill', which in Article 9 'already contains a rule to modify the law' on 'the citizenship of foreigners, and which the Chamber of Deputies will begin discussing on 10 September'. This is the normative translation of the proposal put forward, but not yet formalised, by Forza Italia. And it reads: 'A foreign child born in Italy who has regularly attended the education and training system in the national territory for at least ten years, successfully completing the first cycle and the first two years of the second cycle in secondary schools of the second degree or, alternatively, in the three-year and four-year courses of vocational education and training of regional competence, acquires Italian citizenship'.

From the PD also presses the leader of the group in the Chamber, Chiara Braga: 'Not having approved a law on citizenship is a raw nerve for the PD,' she admits. We have presented a motion on these issues. Our motion looks with more interest at Ius Soli. We want to understand whether FI is using this issue for a positioning strategy with its own electorate or whether it is really interested in reaching a point of fall, but we are not willing to treat the topic as a political negotiation because we are talking about people's lives'.