Italy is not an address.
The President of the Republic has promulgated the law on health care for Italians living abroad. A law of which I am the first signatory and which from today is finally in the Official Journal.
It is a passage that for me has a much stronger political significance than the simple norm. For years we thought that Italians abroad were “outside” the territory, “outside” the priorities of the State.
Today it is no longer like that. Today, the Meloni Government has demonstrated that Italy is not just a map, but a language spoken in a house in New York, a business expanding to Miami, a family living in Canada and continuing to feel part of our history.
Being an Italian citizen means having a passport, of course. But before that, it means belonging, feeling part of a community wherever you live. An Italian citizen does not become less Italian because he lives far away.
This law is not a “who left” law. It is a law for an Italy larger than its geographical borders, more modern than its bureaucracy.
But this measure is not a point of arrival: it is a precedent. From here on, when we talk about Italians around the world, we will start from one simple thing: they are not suburbs. They are Itali
