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Italy’s Olympic women volleyball team thrilled the nation when it defeated the US to win a gold medal — the first ever in that category.
But the victorious squad’s homecoming has also sparked a heated debate over who should have the right to gain Italian citizenship, leading to an open row within Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition.
The furore began last week after the vandalising of a Rome mural celebrating one of the squad’s star players, Paola Egonu, who, like several of her teammates, is the Italian-born daughter of African migrants. The mural depicted Egonu in her Olympic uniform with the word “Italianness”.
Now several parties, including the centre-right Forza Italia within Meloni’s coalition, are openly asking for Italy’s restrictive citizenship rules to be changed to fast-track the naturalisation process for all children of immigrant background who are schooled in Italy.
While Meloni herself has not yet weighed in on the topic, her far-right coalition partner, the League, has stoked racist sentiment and is fiercely opposed to any changes to the citizenship law.
Roberto Vannacci, the League’s delegation leader in the European parliament, claimed in a social media post that a black athlete such as Egonu “does not represent the vast majority of Italians, who instead have white skin”. He had already made similar comments against her in a controversial book published last year ahead of his political debut.
Born in Italy to Nigerian parents, Egonu, 25, acquired Italian citizenship a decade ago. She has not commented on Vannacci’s most recent diatribe, but she unsuccessfully sued him for defamation in the past. Two years ago, Egonu said she wanted to quit the national team over persistent racist abuse.
The head of the Italian Olympic committee, Giovanni Malagò, slammed Vannacci’s racist comments and defended his country’s ethnically-diverse team. “If anyone thinks . . . that someone isn’t Italian because of the colour of their skin, I don’t even want to comment on it. These girls are all Italian and above all they were wonderful.”
The vandals who defaced the mural — which was painted after the Olympic gold victory — covered Egonu’s body in pink paint and scrubbed out the words “stop racism, hatred, xenophobia” that were marked on the volleyball.
Italian foreign minister and Forza Italia leader Antonio Tajani quickly took to social media to express his “total indignation for this serious act of crude racism” over the act of vandalism.
“My commitment against any form of discrimination is maximum,” he wrote on X, adding: “Courage Paola, you are our pride.”
In a later interview with Il Messaggero newspaper, he called for Rome to create a faster path to Italian citizenship for children born to immigrant parents who are growing up and being schooled in the country.
“The strength of our country and its economic potential comes from the ability to integrate people who come from the outside,” Tajani said. “Great openness, without discussions of ethnicity or race . . . is what makes a nation competitive.”
Forza Italia lawmakers have said they seek to start legislative work next month on early naturalisation of children educated in Italy. The bill will aim to improve their rights and protections before they come of age.
League leader Matteo Salvini on Monday said that the proposed changes are not on the government’s agenda. ‘’There is no need, no urgency to change the law on citizenship,” he said. “There is a law, it works, let’s deal with something else.”
Nearly 900,000 foreign children — many born in Italy to migrant workers who are residing legally in the country — are currently enrolled in the Italian school system. They represent 10.6 per cent of the country’s total 8.2mn schoolchildren.
Under current laws, children born in Italy to foreign parents can apply for citizenship only when they turn 18, unless their parents get naturalised in the meantime. Some exceptions are made in cases deemed of special state interest — including for sports talent.
At the same time, people who live abroad and can prove they are the descendants of Italian émigrés can secure citizenship if they have never lived in the country.
Italian political parties have previously proposed changes to the restrictive rules with some advocating for birthright citizenship, or that children are naturalised after five years of school in Italy.
Meloni herself in the past staunchly opposed birthright citizenship, but said she was opened to faster naturalisation for children who complete compulsory schooling in Italy — which ends at age 16.
Neither proposal has gained traction so far.
But the post-Olympic euphoria and the outrage over the defacing of Egonu’s image, as well as the growing pressure of Italy’s own demographic crisis, has brought new impetus for the fast-tracking of children’s citizenship.
Elly Schlein, leader of the leftwing opposition, said last week that “whoever is born or grows up in Italy is Italian” and that her Social Democratic party will fight to change the rules to reflect that.
Another opposition group, the centrist Più Europa party, has said it intends to seek a national referendum on easing citizenship laws, which would require obtaining 500,000 signatures.