The Italian government has granted Italian nationality to ultraliberal Argentine President Javier Milei, eligible as a descendant of Italians, a source close to the matter told AFP on Saturday, December 14. A libertarian with a disheveled look and rock star personality, Javier Milei is in Rome to meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and participate in a festival organized by his far-right party, Fratelli d’Italia.
The two leaders established a close relationship. Javier Milei last month gave Giorgia Meloni a statuette of himself wielding a chainsaw – a nod to his signature gesture during his presidential campaign, where he displayed an electric chainsaw at his rallies.
“Discrimination”
Milei’s sister, Karina, also received citizenship according to the ANSA news agency, which said the requests were processed urgently by Rome. But this decision aroused the anger of the opposition which is campaigning to facilitate access to nationality for children born in Italy to foreign parents. Granting citizenship to Milei is an “insult” and an act of “intolerable discrimination against many young people who will only obtain it after many years,” declared Riccardo Magi, MP for the opposition Europa party.
Foreigners must currently live in Italy for ten years before they can apply for naturalization, and children born in Italy to foreign parents cannot apply for citizenship until they turn 18. Opposition parties and human rights organizations like Oxfam want to reduce the period from ten years to five, to bring Italy in line with countries like the UK, France and Germany, but the coalition led by Giorgia Meloni opposes a relaxation of the rules.
“For millions of Italians without nationality, born in Italy, who grew up in our country, who studied here, who work here, who pay taxes in our country – unlike President Milei – obtaining Italian citizenship is a journey of the fighter,” Riccardo Magi said in a video posted on social media. “Perhaps they should take a chainsaw, a real one or a fake one, and go and demand that the nationality law be changed,” he quipped.