Democratic Party (PD) Senate Whip
Luigi Zanda on Thursday called for confidence votes to get the
'ius soli' immigrants' children citizenship law through
parliament.
Speaking after a new electoral law was passed into law thanks
to five confidence votes, Zanda said "as soon as we have the
certainty of getting the necessary votes, I would greet with
great favour a government decision to put the ius soli (bill) to
a confidence vote before the end of the legislative term".
'Ius soli' is Latin for 'law of the soil'.
Rightwing and centre-right MPs including junior government
partner Popular Area (AP) are against the bill, which would
grant citizenship to the children of regular immigrants who have
spent at least five years in the Italian school system.
This would lower the age at which they may apply for
citizenship from 18 at present to around 10.12.
Some 800,000 youngsters would benefit from the bill,
according to surveys.
The anti-migrant, anti-euro Northern League (LN) is fiercely
opposed to the bill, as is ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza
Italia (FI) party.
The LN and centre-right parties say citizenship must be a
reward, rather than a premise, for integration and that alleged
extremists might benefit from the measure.
They have sought to depict the measure as benefitting
children now arriving in Italy, and not long-term residents.
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