Italy’s Constitutional Court Sends the Citizenship Fight to Europe’s Highest Court

What Just Happened

With Ordinanza 147/2026, deposited on July 23, the Constitutional Court joined three cases: one from the Tribunal of Mantua, involving a child born in Brazil whose mother an Italian court had already recognized as an Italian citizen, and two from the Tribunal of Campobasso, brought by Argentine and Brazilian descendants of Italian emigrants who never naturalized elsewhere.

Rather than deciding the cases itself, the Court suspended them and referred a single question to the Court of Justice of the European Union: do the EU treaties on Union citizenship permit a national rule that deems people born abroad before the reform, who hold another citizenship, never to have acquired Italian citizenship at all, unless they fit within a handful of narrow exceptions?

The decision caught even the lawyers who requested it off guard. The Local Italy, which has covered the citizenship saga closely for English-speaking readers since the decree first landed, reported that attorney Marco Mellone, counsel in the referred Campobasso cases, described the referral as “a big surprise.” According to The Local’s reporting, pending appeals will now be suspended rather than rejected while Europe deliberates, and Mellone has asked the EU court to apply its urgent procedure, given that hundreds of thousands of families worldwide are affected.

The news traveled quickly beyond Italy’s borders as well. CNN is now covering the referral for mainstream American audiences, calling it “a potential lifeline” for the global diaspora, alongside national coverage from Il Manifesto in Italy and La Nación in Argentina, where the story ran under a headline about renewed hope for thousands of descendants.

Why the Reversal Matters

To understand why this is significant, remember what happened in April. In Sentenza 63/2026, the same Court upheld the reform against the challenge brought from Turin and expressly refused to involve the EU court, reasoning that European case law was already clear enough. The claimants’ attorneys asked for the referral then. They were told no.

They asked again in the Mantua and Campobasso cases. This time, the Court said yes, invoking the principle of loyal cooperation with the European Union and acknowledging that the final interpretation of EU law belongs exclusively to the Court of Justice.

We will be precise about what this is and is not. The Constitutional Court did not change its mind on the merits; it says so in the order itself. What changed is who gives the final answer. And that is exactly what the families’ advocates wanted, because of the EU court’s record.

The EU Court’s Track Record on Citizenship

Since a landmark 2010 ruling, the EU Court of Justice has held that whenever a national decision costs someone their citizenship of the Union, EU law applies and the decision must be proportionate. The pattern in the cases that followed is remarkably consistent, and it favors individuals over automatic rules.

The Netherlands case (2019). Dutch law stripped citizenship automatically from dual nationals living abroad for ten years. The EU court ruled that automatic rules are not enough: every affected person must be able to obtain an individual review of their circumstances, with citizenship restored retroactively where the loss proves disproportionate. The Italian reform contains no individual review for anyone, in any category.

The Denmark case (2023). Denmark cancelled citizenship for people born abroad who missed an application deadline. The EU court held that deadlines are acceptable only when people had fair notice and a genuine opportunity to act. The Italian reform’s deadline expired at 23:59 on March 27, 2025, the night before the decree was announced to the world. If the reform excluded you, it is almost certainly because of a deadline that did not exist when it passed. That is not a technicality; it is the precise defect the EU court has already condemned, sitting at the center of the law.

The Austria case (2022). The EU court protected a woman who had not yet formally acquired the nationality at stake, because the state’s decision definitively cut her off from EU citizenship. The Italian government’s central defense is that “unrecognized” descendants have nothing to protect. The Austria case shows the EU court looks at real-world effect, not paperwork status.

The Malta case (2025). Just last year, over Malta’s strenuous objections, the EU court struck down Malta’s investor citizenship program, confirming that how a member state handles the acquisition of citizenship is not beyond Europe’s reach. The firewall the Italian government’s argument depends on was breached twelve months ago.

There is one more piece. The government’s fallback position is that excluded descendants can simply pursue naturalization instead. The EU court has already rejected that too, ruling in the Denmark case that an easier naturalization path is no substitute for the protections above.

A Fair Word About the Other Side

We advocate for the claimants, but we do not sell fairy tales. The government will argue that the reform regulates the acquisition of citizenship rather than its loss, that a status never formally recognized generated no exercisable rights, and that the Court of Justice has tolerated large-scale loss of EU citizenship without individual review in the Brexit context. The Constitutional Court itself, in the very order making the referral, restated that it still considers its April reasoning correct.

This is a genuinely open question, and anyone promising certainty in either direction is selling something other than legal analysis. What is certain is this: for the first time, the strongest arguments on the claimants’ side will be answered by the only court whose word on EU law is final.

The Timeline

Per The Local’s reporting, the EU court hearing is expected in the second half of 2027. Based on the court’s typical pace, a judgment would likely follow between late 2027 and mid 2028, and the pending request for the urgent procedure, if granted, could compress that considerably. The case then returns to Rome, where the Constitutional Court applies whatever Europe decides.

What This Means for You

If the reform excluded you: your side of the argument has just reached the strongest forum it has ever had. Italian judges can now suspend affected cases rather than dismiss them while Europe deliberates, and among the cases already referred is a child whose mother an Italian court has recognized as an Italian citizen.

If you tried to act before the deadline but could not get through: you remain in a distinct and stronger position. Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation confirmed in May that consular blocking is itself a legal basis to bring a claim, and the Constitutional Court has now twice, explicitly, left your category open.

For everyone waiting: a window, if it opens, will reward the prepared. Document gathering takes months and sometimes years. The families who have their records ready will move first.

Since our founding, PortaleItaly has never guaranteed the outcome of any court process, and we never will; courts decide, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not being straight with you. But we have also never pretended to be neutral. We are advocates for the claimants: our clients, our own families, the diaspora this company exists to serve. Their arguments are now in front of the one court with the final word on European law, and we will be following every step, ready to act the moment the landscape moves.