Italy could be on the way to reversing a controversial law that places a two-generation cap on citizenship by descent, a law that has been met with widespread protests and hundreds of lawsuits challenging it.
After initially refusing to refer the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Italy’s Constitutional Court has changed course over the controversial Law 74/2025, which restricts eligibility for Italian citizenship for many great-grandchildren of Italians living abroad. It has suspended its own proceedings and asked the ECJ to determine whether the legislation is compatible with EU law before issuing its own ruling.
Passed in March 2025, Law 74/2025 significantly tightened Italy’s jure sanguinis (right of blood) citizenship rules. The legislation limits automatic citizenship by descent to children and grandchildren of Italian nationals, thereby ending eligibility for many great-grandchildren and more distant descendants of Italians who emigrated abroad.
The reform sparked widespread criticism from Italian communities overseas, particularly in South America, North America and Australia, where millions of people trace their ancestry to Italian emigrants.
Previous ECJ rulings state that decisions affecting EU citizenship must respect the principle of proportionality and take individual circumstances into account.
Lawyers representing descendants of Italians abroad argue that the legislation retroactively strips citizenship rights from people who were already entitled to Italian nationality under previous rules, and that such a blanket approach conflicts with ECJ case law requiring national authorities to apply the principle of proportionality and consider individual circumstances when decisions affect EU citizenship.
The Constitutional Court concluded that the dispute raises questions over the interpretation of EU law that fall within the jurisdiction of the ECJ. It will suspend its own examination of the case until the Luxembourg-based court clarifies whether the new restrictions are compatible with the rights associated with EU citizenship and with established European legal principles.
Corrado Caruso, a law professor at Bologna University, told CNN he had not expected the court’s change of course.
“We’d requested a referral in the previous hearing, but the court denied it”, he said. Still, he sees it as encouraging. “It’s a positive step because it means the court has some doubts. I think there was a change of mind.”
“Maybe the court was too quick in dismissing our request in March; maybe they reflected a little deeper,” he said, adding that recent unrelated rulings have been notably “EU-friendly.”
Marco Mellone, one of the four lawyers challenging the legislation, described the referral as “a 180-degree change of direction” and “a confession that they made a mistake in March”.
Monica Restanio, another lawyer involved in the case, called the decision “the best news that we could have got, and much better than what I was expecting”.
She argued that previous ECJ case law consistently requires governments to assess nationality cases proportionately and individually before depriving people of citizenship rights, rather than through blanket legislative measures.
“They had the chance to refer it three months ago and didn’t. It’s clear they changed their opinion,” Mellone told CNN. “They’ve been brave. The law was completely against 30 years of case law at the ECJ.”
If the ECJ finds that aspects of the legislation conflict with EU law, Italy’s Constitutional Court could ultimately require Parliament to amend the legislation. Such a ruling could also have implications for a separate case concerning the so-called “minor issue“, a 2024 measure restricting citizenship rights for children born abroad, which Italy’s Supreme Court is weighing, and in which Restanio is also involved.
