Citizenship income, the EU Court of Justice rejects the 10-year residency requirement to obtain it: appeals are opened and INPS estimates compensation at €3 billion

To access the citizen’s income there was a clause that one had to have resided in Italy for at least 10 years, of which the last 2 were consecutive.

Well, the European Court of Justice rejected this part of the law because:

«constitutes indirect discrimination against third-country nationals who are long-term residents» because, «even if this requirement also applies to nationals, it mainly concerns foreign citizens, among whom in particular such third-country nationals figure».

So now those who have been denied RdC can appeal, and INPS estimates the possible compensation at 3.1 billion if the Court of Justice establishes that all citizens are to be reimbursed. Or, if only citizens who had applied are reimbursed, it would be 850 million.

The modalities of any compensation are still to be defined, but the first estimates of the costs that the Government would have to bear if sentences in favor of foreign citizens began to emerge have already been put forward. INPS, which managed the citizen’s income, hypothesized a cost of 850 million euros. This was a calculation made in case the Constitutional Court had blocked the same requirement contested by the Court of the European Union, but it only counted the rejected applications.

According to other calculations, also released by the INSP, the second scenario could be much more burdensome for Italian public finances. In fact, if a court were to decide that anyone who would have been entitled to the citizen’s income according to European parameters could request a refund from the State, then the expense would rise to 3 billion euros for the 4 years of validity of the subsidy.

Source: Citizenship income, estimates of reimbursements to foreigners: 850 million or 3 billion? – QuiFinanza