"Since I was elected, I have been pursuing one of the most important requests for our community in North America: the reacquisition of Italian citizenship for those who lost it before 1992. This is an issue affecting many former Italian citizens who emigrated to Canada and the US, and who, in order to avoid discrimination and integrate into society, acquired the citizenship of their country of residence, thus losing their Italian citizenship. This was because, before 1992, Italy did not allow dual citizenship." - stated Hon. Di Sanzo, elected in the North and Central America Constituency.

"A few months after I was elected, I introduced a bill to allow the reacquisition of citizenship, recognizing this right for all Italians who had lost it. In these last two years, I have not missed an opportunity to emphasize the importance of this issue in parliamentary debates. With the Tajani decree law, which introduces a series of significant changes to Italian citizenship law, the Democratic Party immediately thought about the possibility of making amendments to the law to at least allow for the reacquisition of citizenship.

For us in the Democratic Party, every change to citizenship law had to include the reopening of the terms for reacquisition of citizenship. Therefore, we seized the opportunity, working together as parliamentarians elected abroad, to present amendments on this issue in the Senate, where the decree law is being discussed. Thanks to the numerous requests from the Democratic Party in the Senate, where Senator Francesca La Marca and Senator Francesco Giacobbe presented the clear position of the Democratic Party, the government has finally presented an amendment that addresses our requests and reopens the terms for reacquisition of citizenship until 2027.

The amendment, which has the government's support and should therefore be approved, will be voted on in the Senate Constitutional Affairs Committee on Tuesday, May 14th. From there, the decree law will move on for debate in the Senate chamber and then the Chamber of Deputies.

After the final approval of the law, expected by May 27th, we expect the ministry to release detailed instructions on how to apply. The amendment will allow applications for reacquisition until the end of 2027 – I would have preferred a solution without time limits because when a right is recognized, it should not have an expiration date, but obviously, once the application process opens, we will engage in an information campaign."