Rome 17 May 2024
Starting from July, the passport application and renewal service will be available in all Italian post offices. This was announced by Poste Italiane’s General Manager Giuseppe Lasco at the end of a meeting with the Minister of Interior Matteo Piantedosi on the progress of Poste Italiane’s Polis project.
In both small and large centres
“The big news is that, starting from July and once the necessary regulatory steps have been completed,” said the General Manager, “this service will progressively be available in post offices throughout Italy, without distinction between small and large centres.” Lasco added that Polis “is proceeding apace, as we have already initiated 2,400 interventions and completed over 1,500 Post Offices throughout Italy to date. On the instructions of the Ministry of Interior, we have taken an active role in extending the passport application service in support of the police headquarters and police stations. Since last March, we have registered over 350 applications at the 31 post offices where the service is active, and over 130 post offices will become operational already by the end of the month,” Lasco continued. “I would like to stress how more than 80% of citizens have requested that their passports be delivered to their homes via Poste Italiane, which saves them time and travel and is also, and above all, good for the environment.”
The Viminale forecasts
At the end of the meeting with the General Manager of Poste, which was also attended by representatives of organised tourism associations, the Minister of Interior Matteo Piantedosi said that: “Thanks to the introduction of the new priority agenda, which was accompanied by a significant effort made by the police headquarters in terms of both personnel and organisational models, it was possible to significantly increase the number of appointments, which in April alone totalled 354,000 compared to the 230,000 of April 2023. We expect to issue over 3.4 million passports in 2024 compared to the 2.7 million of the previous year. This is a tangible sign of our commitment to provide effective answers to citizens.”
Fruitful confrontation
The Minister informs that the meeting “was an opportunity for a fruitful discussion on the outcome of all the actions already undertaken to overcome the difficulties encountered in issuing passports, also in light of the valuable contribution that the associations were able to offer on this point. In particular, the analysis of the data revealed how the measures taken are effectively addressing the problems identified in recent months, and all participants were satisfied with the important results achieved.”
