Italians were called to the polls a few weeks ago to cast their votes by referendum towards the repeal of existing provisions regarding citizenship, and to reduce the residency requirement for naturalisation from 10 to five years.
The proposal reflected demographic necessity, economic realism and a plea for inclusion. However, instead of heading to the polls to express their opinions, voters stayed away and ultimately the reform was thwarted by the low turnout.
Considering that migration and citizenship are topics that typically provoke heightened, often polarised, public sentiment, the silence at the ballot box was striking and telling, particularly in a country where voting is not only a right, but a “civic duty”, as enshrined in section 48 of the Italian constitution.
Direct democracy and civic duty
A referendum is a formal and crucial mechanism of direct democracy whereby a political or legal question is submitted to the electorate for a direct vote. It enables citizens to participate in the legislative or constitutional process by either approving or rejecting a specific legislative proposal, constitutional amendment or policy decision. This time the Italian referendum failed to meet the required quorum, set at 50% plus one of the electorate, needed to validate the outcome.
While the result indicates a level of stagnant inertia by the voting population, more significantly it reflected a deliberate strategy of abstention, as encouraged by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her centre-right coalition. The rationale? With the “yes” vote reportedly enjoying stronger momentum among left-leaning and younger voters, participation itself was seen as a risk. By urging silence, the government in effect neutralised the prospect of reform without confronting it directly.
The European ripple effect
In the context of an EU built on free movement and increasingly interdependent demographics, national decisions on citizenship reform carry cross-border implications and cannot be watched in isolation. Naturalisation in one EU member state opens doors across the Schengen area, in effect transforming national choices into European ones. This interconnected reality makes citizenship a political gateway to continental mobility and rights.
When in 2006 France reduced its naturalisation timeline for third country (non-EU member) nationals, the move was met with a strong nationalist backlash. Far-right political actors used the reform to fuel fears about loss of identity and diluted sovereignty. In April the French parliament adopted a bill restricting birthright citizenship for children born in its overseas territory of Mayotte. The island has seen mass immigration from its Indian Ocean neighbour, the Comoros Islands, and the bill reflects a political response aimed at curbing the demographic impact of cross-border migration.
These developments, whether expanding or restricting access to citizenship, consistently tighten public sentiment around migration and deepen the polarisation of identity politics. Italy’s referendum tested again how far the EU’s ideal of inclusive belonging can stretch before hitting the walls of national anxiety. This dynamic, in which national citizenship policy triggers continental anxieties, has become more visible across the EU, causing the rise of nationalist parties that see naturalisation not as inclusion but as incursion.
The demographic crisis that doesn’t wait
Yet Italy remains in demographic free fall. With a fertility rate of just 1.21 children per woman, among Europe’s lowest, and an average life expectancy of 84 years, among the world’s highest, the population is shrinking and ageing. One in four Italians is now over 65. Youth populations are declining. Workforce gaps are growing.
The result is unforgiving: fewer workers, more retirees, a ballooning pension burden and declining economic dynamism. Without substantial, sustained migration, projections suggest the EU’s population could shrink by more than a third by 2100. Even with existing migration levels, a 6% decline is expected. Yet Italy’s naturalisation system remains among the most rigid in Europe. The 10-year residency requirement, longer than that of Germany or France, survives even in the face of this reality.
Italy’s 5.4-million foreign residents, many of whom have lived, worked, studied and contributed for years, remain outside the civic fold. They pay taxes. They raise children. But they remain second class. The vote could have offered them a pathway to full civic recognition. Instead, it affirmed their invisibility.
SA’s cautionary mirror
While Italy’s challenge is legislative inertia, SA’s appears to be the inverse: an ambitious legislative overhaul veering towards overreach. The recently finalised White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration & Refugee Protection proposes to repeal the existing Citizenship Act and consolidate multiple statutes into a single, centralised framework.
Though framed as overdue streamlining, given the department of home affairs’ chronic inefficiencies the reality points to something more troubling: expanded executive discretion, diminished legal certainty and erosion of constitutional safeguards.
Enhancing the efficiency of citizenship administration in SA does not require dismantling its legal framework. What is needed is investment in institutional competence, procedural fairness and the enforcement of existing safeguards. The white paper misdiagnoses the crisis — the problem isn’t the law, it’s the lack of institutional delivery.
Section 20 of the SA constitution guarantees that no citizen may be deprived of citizenship arbitrarily. The white paper’s proposals, particularly the breadth of ministerial discretion, risk violating this fundamental safeguard. The Helen Suzman Foundation has condemned the white paper, warning that it transforms citizenship from a legal status into an executive favour, in which rights become conditional and access becomes opaque.
A global contest over inclusion
Whether in Rome, Paris or Pretoria the stakes are the same: who belongs, and on what terms is identity defined? Should long-term legal permanent residents who contribute socially and economically be entitled to full civic recognition? Should citizenship reward lived commitment, or remain tethered to ancestry?
The European examples are instructive. Countries such as Portugal and France have moved towards shorter, more accessible naturalisation paths, not out of sentimentality but out of demographic necessity and civic logic. By contrast, SA risks codifying exclusion in a climate increasingly shaped by xenophobic undercurrents.
Delayed or withheld citizenship fosters marginalisation and distrust. It weakens social cohesion and invites division. Timely inclusion builds loyalty, promotes investment and reflects the lived realities of migration in the 21st century.
This is the crossroad at which SA stands, between codifying exclusion through opaque executive control, or embracing reform that meets constitutional values and demographic needs and by streamlining bureaucratic processes that are in effect barring progression to citizenship to those who qualify.
The Rainbow Nation’s fork in the road
SA, as most of the globalised world, faces demographic and political pressures. It has every reason to review and modernise its citizenship laws. But doing so through a white paper that centralises power, narrows rights and undermines transparency is not reform. It is regression. The constitution affirms inclusion. The white paper proposes the opposite.
Citizenship debates go straight to the heart of identity, territory, ancestry and inclusion. Identity is not a relic of soil and blood, nor a matter for DNA kits. It is lived, earned and constantly renegotiated through participation.
• Pizzocri is CEO at Eisenberg & Associates.
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