Perche

I like arriving in London from the USA and using my EU-Italian passport to get through, breezing through passport control in Italy, and using Global Entry when I come back to the USA. I know that Brexit won't have an immediate effect but thinking long term, I'm pondering the worth of getting an EU-Italian passport if you can. I have it, but am just thinking.

It's a long haul in terms of time to get it, and sometimes requires a trip to a small town in Italy where the local officials are always on "pausa," but if you have an Italian parent or grandparent who has not renounced his or her citizenship, you can apply for Italian citizenship by sending a copy of your birth certificate and a certificate attesting your parent's Italian nationality to Italy's Interior Ministry.

The hard part is getting your parents or grandparents birth certificate. If they are from a small town in Calabria, you usually have to go there and shake them out of their apartment and drag them to the town hall to give you a stamp, and they will say, "Not possible," unless you know what to say back.

I have zero personal interest or conflict of interest, but I believe that this particular company that helps Italian-Americans get Italian citizenship is honest because I know the people who started it up, at least as a few years ago.

http://www.myitaliancitizenship.com/index.php

Maybe the EU will break up over time? Maybe it will be harder to travel? I don't know. Just something to think about as the laws may be in flux, and will apparently focus mainly on immigration issues.

PWMTrav

I could do without ever flying through London. We are very spoiled with the options out of Boston, but if I'm not going to Rome directly, my preferred connections are in Zurich and Amsterdam. The two best transit airports in the EU. If I didn't like Air France as much as I did, CDG is pretty awful too.

As far as Italian citizenship goes, it's a paper drill, and a very exact one. Talk to your consulate and find out what their process is. While the basic documentation requirements are standard, the process varies by the consular official handling the matter. As Perche suggested, start with your Italian documents first, as they're often the hardest to get, especially if (and I don't mean to stereotype) your ancestors are from the South. As always, citizenship comes with rights and responsibilities, make sure you're comfortable with both. If you feel the need to pay for service, I'll toss out another option - Luigi Paiano is an attorney in Bologna. Probably easy to find on Google. I hear he's great.

Not to drag this to OMNI, but the Brexit vote was ridiculous. There isn't an objective argument to be made in favor. I will be shocked if the UK actually leaves. The referendum is non-binding anyway and a lot of "leave" voters are having regrets. They'll squeeze a token concession from the EU, maybe vote again, and stay. That's my guess.

Concerto

Glad to have your take on this. I was blown away by it when I woke up on Friday, as were most people I spoke to here in Provence, where I currently am.

I'm not sure what to do about the passport thing yet, except to wait and see. Maybe the UK will negotiate a similar deal to what Norway and Switzerland have with the EU, for it would be a shame to totally cut freedom of movement. Otherwise, it's back to the 1930s.

PWMTrav

The rest of the EU will probably want to make an example out of this. If the UK really does file its Article 50 paperwork and exits, I wouldn't expect freedom of movement to come back very quickly. They already aren't part of the monetary union, so allowing them to leave and retain freedom of movement essentially allows them to have the benefits without the responsibilities.

My guess is still that the UK doesn't leave, though.

KLouis

One shouldn't forget that one of the pro-Brexit campaign was that very freedom of movement status that "let many non-brittish EU citizens take the jobs from the brits". Why then should these people ask for that to be re-instated?

By the way, it wouldn't be back to the 30s but, rather, to pre-1973 when the, then, European Community joined the UK (or vice versa, depending on how you see it )

mandolino

I've travelled freely through Europe for business in the last 25 years on an Australian passport. Apart from having to use the "non-EU" queue, which is sometime faster, I haven't suffered any issues or had to get visas. I don't see why it would be any worse for UK citizens, in or out of the EU.

The UK has never had completely open borders as per Schengen which the UK isn't part of. The nearest thing is the Common Travel Area with Ireland.