Lorna at Vicenza

It should be I think - but when the Carabiniere stopped me and I gave them my driver's licence (an Italian one) and my carta d'identità - they harummphhed at me and said,

Uh - a foreigner. Where's your permesso di soggiorno? It was quite a few years ago. I didn't have mine on me and told them I'd given them my carta d'identità and that I wouldn't have got that without a permesso di soggiorno.
They made a big play of checking all my papers and car libretto very thoroughly and then just said, "Può andare."

I wasn't going to stick around any longer so off I went.

Cashmere Kate

The only time I've ever needed mine was when I went to get my tessera sanitaria. It's been sitting in a drawer since then!

I remember that when I went to get the tessera sanitaria, the woman asked for my permesso di soggiorno. I said I didn't have one and was just about to add "because I'm British and EU citizens don't need them" but before I could get the words out, the woman had thrown all my documents back at me and said there was nothing she could do if I was an illegal foreigner ! I politely explained that I was not an illegal foreigner and simply didn't need a permesso di soggiorno as I had this wonderful, extremely expensive certificate instead! Thank goodness I now have a permanent tessera sanitaria and don't have to go through that every 6 months!

jonwel

I'm sure that legally the carta d'identità is enough, precisely because it's a demonstration that you have permesso di soggiorno or the new equivalent. It does occur to me, though, that I renewed my identity card last October for five years while my permesso runs out now, so if I didn't renew that I'd possess an identity card without having a valid PdiS! But don't tell the carabinieri that.

jonwel

Just to complete the saga: I'd handed in the application for the attestato last Thursday and already on Monday they phoned me to say I could go and get it, which I did yesterday, paying another 14.62 euro, plus 52 cents (they always charge these odd figures; I think it's to suggest that they're the result of a calculation of costs and are not just dictated by pure greed). Anyway I took it to the ASL and they renewed my tess. san. without any trouble.

All's well that ends well, but considering that the 2007 decree was supposed to achieve parity of treatment for all EU citizens resident in other countries I wonder if any other EU country charges 30 euro for the privilege? I doubt it! If I had time I'd take it up with a Euro-MP.