A 'ius soli' bill granting the
children of regular immigrants citizenship if they are born on
Italian soil and have completed five years in the Italian school
system has been put off until the autumn, Premier Paolo
Gentiloni said at the weekend.
"Unfortunately, we'll have to put the bill off, the numbers
aren't there" he said, vowing to make it a priority when
parliament comes back after the summer recess.
Gentiloni said he could not risk a confidence vote on the
controversial measure as the junior government partner, the
centre-right Popular Area (AP), are against the bill.
Ius soli is Latin for law of the soil.
Newspapers said Monday the bill would probably go onto a
"dead-end" track in parliament and would be put off until the
next legislature.
AP leader, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, said Monday that
Gentiloni had shown "realism" in the face of his small
centre-right group's opposition to the bill in the midst of a
migrant emergency in Italy.
"It is a correct decision, marked by realism and common
sense," said Alfano.
Centre-right and rightwing populist forces like the
anti-immigrant Northern league have sought to portray the bill
as granting immediate citizenship to babies born of the
thousands of migrants now arriving in Italy.
Some 86,000 have arrived so far this year, a 10% increase on
the same period last year.
AP's Regional Affairs Minister, Enrico Costa, had threatened
to quit if the bill became law.
On the opposition side, three-time premier and media magnate
Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party also welcomed the
postponement and possible shelving of a bill it had depicted as
a gift to the migrant waves.
FI Lower House Whip Renato Brunetta spoke of "another defeat"
for the leader of Gentiloni's ruling centre-left Democratic
Party (PD), ex-premier Matteo Renzi.
He said the postponement to the autumn was in fact "a
postponement to the year of St Never".
The postponement was criticised by the leader of a leftwing
PD splinter, Roberto Speranza, who said "the PD is following the
right".
PD House Whip Ettore Rosato slammed what he described as
"political speculation" that had, for the moment, sunk a
"sacrosanct" bill.
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