ROME: When Argentine President Javier Milei stepped onto the grounds of Giorgia Meloni‘s party festival at Rome’s Circus Maximus, a conservative fair that mixed holiday and Italy-First energy, he found a skating rink, a Christmas tree and an upbeat, anti-woke crowd. But with the visit, he got something more than recordings of Mariah Carey and meetings with Meloni, the prime minister of Italy and a conservative ally. He also received Italian citizenship.
Milei, whose grandparents emigrated from Italy to Argentina, received the citizenship because of his bloodline, Italy’s foreign ministry said this past week. The announcement sparked some anger among critics of the govt in Italy, who have long opposed Italy’s citizenship law for allowing people with distant Italian ancestry to get an Italian passport, but not granting citizenship to children of immigrants born in Italy.
“Granting the Italian citizenship to President Milei is yet another slap in the face to boys and girls who were born here or live here permanently and have been waiting for citizenship for years and years, sometimes without any result,” Riccardo Magi, a liberal opposition lawmaker, wrote on X.
Italy doesn’t automatically grant citizenship to kids born in its borders, whether or not the parents are in the country legally. Liberals have proposed a referendum to change the law, but Meloni’s govt has resisted it. Milei has repeatedly expressed pride in his Italian ancestry, but hasn’t explained why, as a head of state, he would seek the citizenship of another country.
