In its recent judgment No. 63/2026, the Italian Constitutional Court (ItCC) acknowledged the existence of a European society grounded on the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU. The judgment appears to be the first explicit reference by a constitutional court of an EU Member State to the emergence of a European society. Importantly, the decision was already taken on 11 March 2026, but only published on 30 April 2026, after the CJEU delivered its judgment on Commission v. Hungary on 21 April 2026. Hence, the ItCC could not rely on Commission v. Hungary. Read together, the two judgments point to a constitutional convergence between national constitutional courts and the CJEU around Article 2 TEU as the basis of European society.

Judgment No. 63/2026 concerned the constitutionality of recent legislation restricting access to Italian citizenship for descendants of Italians abroad. The passage on European society is an obiter dictum. Yet, that does not undermine its relevance. In fact, I argue that it is precisely because the Court was not required to rely on the concept to decide the case that this explicit invocation is noteworthy. In the following, I first set out the legislative background and the ItCC’s decision. I then turn to the obiter dictum on European society, arguing that its real significance lies in the question it raises about belonging: Who belongs to European society? Finally, I briefly draw some conclusions.

Italian Legislation on Citizenship

The applicants, Venezuelan citizens descending from an Italian who had emigrated to Venezuela in the 19^th century, claimed recognition of their Italian citizenship before the Civil Court in Turin. However, following the amendment of the Italian citizenship legislation (Law No. 91/1992) by Decree-Law No. 36/2025 (DL 36/25, converted with modifications into Law No. 74/2025), they were no longer entitled to such recognition.

Italian citizenship has traditionally been governed by ius sanguinis: as a general rule, citizenship is transmitted through filiation by either parent. Other routes to citizenship, such as naturalization or acquisition by another provision of law (e.g. marriage), play a more limited role (see here). Until the 2025 reform, Italian legislation set no further requirements for the transmission of citizenship via filiation. In practice, it allowed unlimited citizenship transmission.

DL 36/25, as converted into L 74/25, introduced significant limitations. According to this reform, a person born abroad – even before the entry into force of such legislation – who holds another citizenship is deemed never to have acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions is satisfied: that person has submitted (a) an administrative or (b) a judicial application to the competent authority no later than 11:59 p.m., 27 March 2025, Rome time; (c) a first- or second-degree ascendant holds, or held at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship; (d) a parent or adoptive parent has been a resident of Italy for at least two consecutive years following the acquisition of Italian citizenship and prior to the date of birth or adoption of the child (for a critical analysis, see here, here, and here).

This reform severely limits the possibility for Italian descendants to be recognized for their citizenship status, especially in cases a) and b). Most notably, it does so retrospectively. DL 36/25 was published on 28 March 2025, yet it required that the administrative or judicial application for Italian citizenship must be initiated by 27 March 2025. Against this background, the Turin Court asked the ItCC to rule on the compatibility of the 2025 reform with several constitutional provisions, also in relation to European and international law, invoking the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty.

The ItCC’s Decision

The ItCC declared the questions raised by the Turin judge partly inadmissible and partly unfounded. In substance, it held that DL 36/2025 fully complies with the citizenship model rooted in the Italian Constitution. According to the ItCC, such model conceives of the “people as a community bound by a genuine link among its members” – in terms of “solidarity, mutual rights and duties,  commitment to the progress of society, and shared destinies” (Considerato in diritto, § 8.2.1). The previous legislation departed from that model, as it allowed those who had no genuine link with the Italian community to participate in political decisions concerning that same community. This reasoning bears directly on the position of Italian ‘virtual’ citizens abroad, namely those – between 60 and 80 million people – who, under the previous legislation, could potentially be recognized as citizens by virtue of descent, even in the absence of any genuine link with Italy.

The ItCC found that DL 36/25 left unaffected both the already established citizenship status and proceedings initiated by 27 March 2025. It characterized the reform as corrective in nature and foreseeable while also considering retrospective application necessary to fulfil its purpose (see critically here). As a consequence, the ItCC concluded that the challenged provisions of DL 36/25 balanced in a not unreasonable way the legitimate expectations of the concerned individuals and “the constitutional principle of effectiveness of citizenship” (Cons. dir., § 9.2.4).

The Obiter Dictum on European Society

Why is this judgment relevant for the debate on European society? When assessing the compliance of DL 36/25 with EU law, the ItCC affirmed:

“There must be a coherent relationship between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship … The constitutional principles that contribute to the creation of a genuine link between the citizen and the national community largely overlap with, and in any event are always consistent with, the values listed in Article 2 TEU, which form the basis of ‘European society’. It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the same individual to feel both Italian and European at the same time, and to have a dual affiliation: to the Italian people and to ‘European society’.” (Cons. dir., § 8.2.5).

This passage is an obiter dictum: it is neither necessary nor relevant to the ItCC decision of the case. In other words, the ItCC did not need to go in this direction. Yet, it is precisely because the passage is not necessary to the outcome that it is revealing. The ItCC deliberately chose to refer to a European society grounded on Article 2 TEU.

Remarkably, the ItCC places European society alongside the concept of (Italian) people. It does so by moving from the need for coherence between national citizenship and European citizenship, both grounded in homogeneous values, to develop its reasoning on the affiliation of the same individual to both the Italian people and European society. In other words, national citizenship reflects belonging to the Italian people, whereas European citizenship reflects belonging to European society. In this construction, Member State citizenship functions as the legal gateway to European society. However, this reading also reveals a possible limitation. If European society is equated with the aggregate of EU citizens, the concept risks becoming too narrow. It leaves aside, for example, third-country nationals who live on EU territory, participate in its social and legal space, and may have developed a qualified link with it.

Belonging to the Italian People and to European Society

The ItCC’s decision on European society resonates with the CJEU’s wording in Commission v. Hungary. Although the two cases arise in different contexts, they share a common constitutional vocabulary. The CJEU affirmed that values enshrined in Article 2 TEU “define the very identity of the Union as a common legal order … of a society” (§§ 549 and 551; for comments, see here, here, and here). For its part, the ItCC affirmed that the democratic order is based “on a ‘singular plural’, on a ‘collective self’,” namely the people, which “presupposes a link with a territory … and the sharing of certain material principles that create a sense of common belonging, of collective identity” (Cons. dir., § 8.2.2). And such constitutional principles are, according to the ItCC, homogeneous with the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU, allowing the individual to be affiliated both to a national people and to European society. The two judgments nonetheless differ in the collective singular they refer to: the Italian people in the ItCC’s decision; the European society in Commission v. Hungary.

The ItCC stresses the substantive dimension underlying citizenship: not merely a formal status, but the expression of a genuine link between the individual and the community. The ItCC places its reasoning alongside that of Commission v Malta (see here and here). The latter case relied on different premises, as it concerned transactional naturalization granted by the Maltese government in exchange for predetermined payments or investments. Yet, the ItCC deduced a common thread between that case and its decision (see critically here), insofar as citizenship cannot be reduced to a purely formal status detached from an effective relationship between the individual and the State.

The genuine link argument thus shows what the Italian judgment, as well as its obiter dictum, are actually about belonging to both a national community (the people) and to a European society. And the understanding of who belongs is crucial for the understanding of who is part of European society – European citizens, third-country nationals living in the EU and participating in its society, or even those who have not developed any genuine link with it.

Conclusion

Armin von Bogdandy argued that by embracing the concept of a European society, the ItCC does not merely acknowledge a trend that is already underway, but actively drives it forward, contributing to the development of European constitutional law. At this stage, however, this statement might be too optimistic. It remains to be seen whether Judgment No. 63/2026 will have a lasting impact or whether its reference to European society will remain isolated.

Commission v. Hungary currently provides a stronger basis for the consolidation of the concept of European society. There, the reference to a society grounded in Article 2 TEU is connected to the judicial enforceability of Union values. By contrast, the ItCC’s reference is more indirect: European society is invoked to argue for the coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of EU citizenship.

However, the ItCC’s obiter dictum is worth taking seriously. It shows a convergence in the constitutional vocabulary used by the CJEU and national constitutional courts. It also brings to the surface a question that remains unresolved: Who belongs to European society? Is it limited to EU citizens, or does it go beyond, e.g., including those who reside in the EU and have developed a qualified link with it? The ItCC seems to point in the first direction. The judgment is therefore significant because it exposes the limits of answering the question of belonging through citizenship alone.

I am sincerely grateful to Armin von Bogdandy, Paolo Mazzotti, Jasper Siegert, and Silvia Steininger for their helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.