Three months after an initial ruling appeared to uphold the government’s position, Italy’s Constitutional Court on Thursday referred the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The court asked the ECJ to rule on whether the citizenship rules are compatible with EU law guaranteeing citizenship of the Union – and the rights that come with it, including freedom of movement – to anyone who holds citizenship of a member state.

Anyone who has had their claim rejected under the new rules and wants to appeal it should act now, according to Marco Mellone, the lawyer who raised the point on freedom of movement rights in a past hearing that led to the referral.

“Those who already received negative decisions and have to appeal should immediately file a claim, as they will be put in a queue,” he told The Local.

Ongoing appeals will be suspended, not rejected, awaiting the ECJ’s verdict, Mellone said.

Filing now gives claimants the best chance of a favourable outcome further down the line, by joining the queue while the case is pending, he explained.

Mellone said there was a “possible danger” if applicants wait. “I can’t exclude the possibility that the Italian government will not react against the court’s decision,” he said.

“If you wait, the government could come out with new limits,” in order to prevent a new rush of applications, he said.

As happened with the initial crackdown on March 28th, 2025, he said, “they could do it in one night.”

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The referral rests on established ECJ case law that a member state cannot introduce rules that make it “impossible or excessively difficult” to exercise those rights, and must inform people affected in advance and give them time to comply.

Mellone noted that one of his clients received a job offer in an EU country conditional on him holding a European passport – the kind of case now in limbo for many thousands of people who lost their route to citizenship overnight.

He said he had requested the ECJ’s urgent procedure given the scale, with “hundreds of thousands of cases”.

The ECJ hearing is likely to be in the second half of 2027, Mellone said.

This article is being updated.