Since Italy became a country in 1861, there has been a surefire way to know who is and isn’t an Italian citizen: look at their parents.

The first page of the civil code, published in 1865 as the rulebook to Europe’s newest country, declared that a child born to an Italian citizen was an Italian citizen.

This founding tenet of the Bel Paese now looks set to change — ending diaspora dreams of returning to the mother country, and meaning that Italians who move abroad risk denying citizenship to their descendants.

On Thursday the Constitutional Court said it would rule in favor of the government and its controversial 2025 law that restricted citizenship for those born abroad. The law — issued last March via emergency decree — had been challenged by four judges, who questioned its constitutionality.

Now, after the first of four hearings was held on Wednesday, a statement issued by the court indicates it will support the government’s position.

“The Constitutional Court has declared the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised by the Turin court partially unfounded and partially inadmissible,” the court announced. It is expected to release a detailed verdict within the coming weeks.

The announcement will be a devastating blow for those who believed the court would uphold Italy’s 160-year history of citizenship by descent, or ius sanguinis.

“It was an extremely clear, harsh intervention, so I had a hope that it would be judged in breach of some constitutional points, but that wasn’t recognized by the court,” professor Corrado Caruso, one of the lawyers who made a case against the new law, told CNN.

Italy’s citizenship rules have been bound up with its diaspora since the country was formed.

Previously, Italians who moved abroad could pass citizenship to their children as long as they didn’t renounce or lose it, often by acquiring another nationality. What many now see as the country of the “dolce vita” was once an impoverished nation that, between 1861 and 1918, saw 16 million citizens emigrate for a better life.

Many who left out of necessity rather than volition considered themselves Italian for life, and chose to retain their citizenship while living and working abroad — meaning that citizenship, along with cultural traditions, was passed down the generations.

Established in 1865, the principle of ius sanguinis was confirmed in Italy’s first targeted citizenship law in 1912, which added a clause stipulating that Italians born and residing abroad would retain their citizenship, and then again in a law in 1992.

However, a law introduced on March 28 last year by emergency decree states that only those with a parent or grandparent born in Italy will be recognized as citizens. It also effectively outlaws dual citizenship for the diaspora, as that parent or grandparent must have held solely Italian citizenship at the time of their descendant’s birth, or at their own death if it came earlier.

‘It was politically huge’

There have long been complaints on both sides about foreign-born descendants acquiring citizenship.

For those born abroad, obtaining recognition is a long and costly process. They must source birth, marriage and death certificates from their ancestors’ hometowns (which can take years, at a cost of up to 300 euros per document), prove that nobody in their ancestral line lost their citizenship, then win an appointment at their local consulate, where waiting lists can stretch to 10 years — if they are able to get a spot on it.

Hiring a lawyer to sue the government can speed up the process, but costs can run to the tens of thousands of euros for a family.

What’s more, women were not able to transmit citizenship until 1948, meaning descendants of Italian women who gave birth before then are blocked from recognition. Since 2009 many have successfully sued the state for gender discrimination — if they can afford it. They too have now seen the door slammed shut.

Meanwhile, Italy’s regional courts are clogged with thousands of citizenship cases, while consulates are inundated by applications.

Between 2014 and 2024, the number of Italian citizens residing abroad increased from 4.6 million to 6.4 million, Italy’s foreign ministry said at the time of passing the decree. Argentina’s Italian consulates processed 30,000 applications in 2024, up by 10,000 from the previous year.

“The granting of citizenship was perceived as problematic for various reasons,” said Caruso, who is a professor of law at Bologna University. “There were lots of requests, the consulates couldn’t keep up. There was an idea that descendants had tenuous links to Italy over time. They were considered to not take part in civil duties — they weren’t in the country, they didn’t pay tax. What’s more, there was a geopolitical question. These citizens could move around the world on their Italian passports, so maybe there was some pressure from Italy’s historical allies.

“I wasn’t optimistic about our chances, because I could tell that the government and their lawyers felt extremely strongly about this reform.

It was politically huge. So there were interests at stake.”

Citizenship by descent has not always been so unpopular. At the Tokyo Olympics, 12% of the Italian national team were born abroad, including 10 in the US. And three months before introducing the new decree, Argentina’s right-wing president Javier Milei, an ally of prime minister Giorgia Meloni, was granted citizenship by descent on a state visit to Italy.

A shrinking population

While Italy slams the door on its diaspora, the country continues to deal with a shrinking and ageing population.

In 2024, a record 155,732 Italians emigrated, and over half a million residents left the country between 2020 and 2024. Most emigrants left from Sicily, where enterprising local authorities have tried to redress the balance by tempting back Italian descendants from abroad. In Mussomeli, a town known for its one-euro homes project, Argentinian doctors were recruited to staff the ailing local hospital. Such projects will no longer be possible under the new citizenship restrictions.

“This has cut loose a vast number of descendants who had requested recognition but hadn’t been given an appointment,” said Caruso. “There is now disparity within nuclear families. One sibling might have citizenship, but another couldn’t get the same treatment.”

The state’s legal counsel successfully argued that descendants who had, until now, been considered to have been born citizens, were in fact born with the expectation of citizenship — and if they hadn’t officially claimed it by 2025, they had a “fictitious link” with the country and had lost their right to it.

Verdicts of the constitutional court cannot be appealed and Caruso was downbeat. “I don’t want to lose hope,” he said. “Maybe it’s not the end of the war but it will be a difficult war.” Although the constitutional court still has the two other referrals to consider, he believes that descendants’ last hope will be at EU courts. “Anyone who’s already filed their case should ask the judge to refer it to Luxembourg,” he said, adding that he did not advise anyone who had yet to file to go ahead.

‘A long battle’

Not everyone is so downbeat, however. Another citizenship lawyer, Marco Mellone, told CNN that things could still change.

“This doesn’t mean the new law is 100% valid and forever,” he said. “There is still space for argument for cases brought by Italian judges to the constitutional court. In July 2025, the constitutional court issued a judgment saying that descendants had a right to Italian citizenship at birth, from birth. They changed their opinion I suppose. It is very weird.”

Mellone plans to take aim at the new law in his separate April 14 hearing at the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest legal authority, whose opinion trumps that of the constitutional court.

“This is a very sad day for millions of people, but I didn’t study law for 25 years to see this kind of thing happen,” he said. “Descendants were born Italian citizens. If you are a citizen at birth, you have a right that nobody can touch. You can’t say, what I said when you were born was not true, you’re not an Italian citizen anymore. You can’t say, I was joking. This is the first step in a long battle.”

He advised that descendants with a case already going through the courts should request a postponement until the fall. For those who haven’t yet filed, he suggested waiting.

“With this judgment … it’ll be much more work for lawyers now than before, but I’m still confident,” he said. “A little less confident than last week. But while the battle is lost, the war is not.” (CNN)

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