In 2017, the number of acquisitions of Italian citizenship reached a new record. Last year the new citizens reached 224 thousand and a third of them are under 15 years of age. The data, reprocessed by the ISMU Foundation on the basis of ISTAT surveys, was released on the occasion of the Republic Day, 2 June, to highlight that multiculturalism is already a reality in our country.
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The Institute of Initiatives and Studies on Multiethnicity is an independent scientific research organisation, dedicated since 1993 to spreading correct knowledge of migratory phenomena. It notes that the number of new citizens has increased steadily in the years prior to 2017. In fact, it went from 65 thousand in 2012 to 101 thousand in 2013, to 130 thousand in 2014, to reach 178 thousand in 2015 and 202 thousand in 2016. In total, in the last six years there have been 900,000 new citizens (a figure that rises to 1.1 million if we consider the last decade).
One in three is under 15 years old
In 2016 (latest available data), of the 202,000 new citizens, 64,000 were under 15 years of age (almost one in three). It should also be noted that the new Italian citizenship of the last decade, often very young, has undoubtedly contributed to the birth of children of Italian nationality (precisely because the children of parents who have become Italian).
Italy is, by far, the leading country in Europe in terms of the number of citizenship acquisitions. In 2015 and 2016 (the latest available data), Italy ranks first in Europe in terms of the number of citizenships acquired: our 380,000 new acquisitions represent 40% more than those of the United Kingdom (268,000) or Spain (265,000), followed by France (233,000), Germany (223,000) and Sweden (110,000). And it is likely, Ismu underlines, that the 224 thousand citizenship acquisitions that took place in Italy in 2017 will confirm or strengthen this primacy.
One immigrant out of 25 becomes an Italian citizen
As for the impact on the resident foreign population, it is estimated that in 2016 Italy granted citizenship to 4.01% of foreign residents (one in 25). The figure is lower than that recorded in Croatia (9.71 percent), Sweden (7.93 percent) and Portugal (6.46 percent), while it is higher than the values recorded in Germany (1.30 percent, where, however, it has never even reached 1.7 percent in the last decade) and the United Kingdom (2.65 percent), but also in Spain and the Netherlands (3.42 percent in both states).
In 2016, Albanians remained the most numerous in becoming Italians, with 37,000 new citizens, followed by Moroccans (35,000), Romanians (13,000) and Indians (10,000). On the other hand, with regard to Romania, despite the fact that fewer years of presence in Italy are required to obtain citizenship, the relatively low number of Italian citizens can be explained both by a more recent migratory flow and by a lower need to become Italian, since they are EU citizens: only 1.11% of Romanians residing in Italy on 1 January 2016 became Italian during the year.
Record in Lombardy
In 2016, Lombardy ranked first both in absolute number of new citizens (54,000) and in percentage increase (+18.5% compared to 2015), with data that nearly quadrupled between 2012 and 2016: from 14,000, in fact, the figure rose to 54,000. Behind Lombardy is Veneto, with 29,000 citizenship acquisitions in 2016 (+13.6% compared to 2015), that is, three and a half times more than in 2012, the year in which there were just over 8,000. It is followed by Emilia Romagna, with 25,000 acquisitions in 2016 (against more than 8,000 in 2012), Piedmont (20,000 acquisitions in 2016 against 6,000 in 2012), Tuscany (14,000 acquisitions in 2016 against 5,000 in 2012), Lazio (12,000) and Marche (8,000).
Moroccans in first place
Among the new citizens of the last decade, those of Moroccan origin are the most numerous. It is also possible to estimate the number of citizenships acquired by nationality of origin in the decade 2006-2017. First, Moroccans (216,000, or 19.1% of the total number of Italian citizenships acquired in Italy in the last decade), then Albanians (189,000, or 16.6%), Romanians (70,000, or 6.2%) and Indians (42,000), (3.7%), Bangladeshis (37,000, that is, 3.3%), Tunisians (34,000, that is, 3.0%), Pakistanis (33,000, that is, 2.9%), Macedonians (32,000, that is, 2.8%) and Brazilians (26,000, that is, 2.3%).
Ismu processing Istat data. For 2017, the figure is an ISTAT estimate and cannot be broken down by nationality.
