Rome
CNN
—
Argentina’s President Javier Milei has been granted Italian citizenship while on a state visit to Italy, a spokesperson for Italy’s Foreign Ministry told CNN.
Milei, who has three Italian grandparents who emigrated to Argentina in 1926, before he was born, was accorded it on the grounds of “ius sanguinis,” or his bloodline, the spokesperson said.
Milei’s sister and political adviser Karina Milei was also granted Italian citizenship during the visit to Rome, during which the pair attended the political convention of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party.
Milei started the process – which can last years for most people – earlier this year, according to Meloni, speaking to Italian media Sunday afternoon on the sidelines of the annual convention, called “Atreju” for a character in the 1984 fantasy film “The NeverEnding Story.”
While the Milei siblings qualify to become Italian, the timing puts them within weeks of the introduction of new rules for the process, which will raise the cost of applications and make it even more difficult for children born in Italy to foreign parents to become citizens.
The new rules stipulate that an Italian citizen who was born in Italy but gave up their Italian citizenship after leaving the country may not automatically transfer citizenship to their descendants.
It is not clear if Milei’s grandparents retained their Italian citizenship or if they gave it up to become Argentine nationals.
Riccardo Magi, an opposition parliamentarian who has campaigned for birthright citizenship, criticized the granting of citizenship to the Milei siblings on X, calling it a “slap in the face to girls and boys who were born here or reside permanently and have been waiting for citizenship for years and years, sometimes without any result.”
“Have you lived in Italy since you were born? Do you go to schools in the country? Do you speak Italian but are your parents of foreign origin? Citizenship, then, you can dream of,” he wrote.
“You have practically never set foot in Italy but your name is Javier Milei, you are a friend of Giorgia Meloni and you discover that you have a distant relative from Calabria called ‘don Ciccio’? Don’t worry, the government will give it to you.”
The foreign ministry spokesperson did not respond to CNN’s question about criticism of the decision to grant the Milei siblings citizenship.
Meloni, on a recent visit to Argentina, expressed solidarity with the conservative leader, with whom she has been working to strengthen ties.
Milei, who likes to brandish a chainsaw to symbolize budget cuts, gave her an action figure of himself holding the power tool.