The EU Court of Justice said Monday
that Italy breached European law by imposing a 10-year-residency
requirement to be eligible for the now-defunct citizenship wage
(RdC) minimum-income benefit.
The RdC was introduced in 2019 by a previous government but
Premier Giorgia Meloni's executive scrapped it and replaced it
with other benefits, saying it took away jobless people's
incentive to seek work and was too susceptible to fraud.
"The Court considers, first of all, that the residency condition
at issue constitutes indirect discrimination towards
third-country nationals who are long-term residents," the court
said in a ruling on two foreign nationals accused in Italy of
falsely declaring that they met the 10-year-riule
"Even though that condition also applies to nationals of the
Member State, it affects primarily non-nationals, which
includes, inter alia, those third-country nationals".
The Court said that, under EU law, five years is sufficient for
a third-country national to be granted long-term resident status
and a Member State cannot
extend unilaterally the period of residence required.
"Lastly, the Court notes that it is also prohibited for the
Member State concerned to provide for a criminal penalty for a
false declaration regarding a residency condition that infringes
EU law," it said.
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