Many people have been waiting for this for many years – Argentine President Milei will receive it quickly: Italian citizenship. The award by Prime Minister Meloni met with criticism.
Argentina's President Javier Milei has received Italian citizenship. Several media outlets unanimously report that the government in Rome has granted citizenship to the politician, who has Italian ancestors. According to the Italian news agency Ansa, Milei's sister Karina also received citizenship – after the applications were processed in a fast-track procedure.
Milei is currently in Rome to meet Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and attend a festival run by her Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) party. Both politicians maintain a close relationship: the Argentinian gave Meloni a statue of himself in this pose in reference to appearances during his election campaign in which the self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist” wielded a chainsaw.
Accusations of discrimination against Meloni
The granting of Italian citizenship to Milei was met with sharp criticism from the Italian opposition. Several left-wing MPs accused Meloni of making Milei an Italian out of discretion. The opposition spoke of an “insult” and “unbearable discrimination” against the many people who would have to wait a long time for this step.
Currently, foreign citizens must live in Italy for ten years before they can apply for naturalization. Children born in Italy to foreign parents cannot apply for citizenship until they are 18 years old. Opposition parties and organizations such as Oxfam Italia have already called for the ten-year deadline to be shortened to five years in order to catch up with countries such as Great Britain, France and Germany.
However, Meloni's governing coalition had rejected relaxing the regulations. However, descendants of Italian citizens who live abroad for some time can also apply for Italian citizenship. The Mileis' grandparents, like many other Italians, emigrated to Argentina in the first decades of the 20th century.
