South Tyrol
From SARAH PERHAPS because both Italians and Austrians are connected in the mind with operatic Postures the South Tyrol question* is often con- sidered funny; it is even said by otherwise Civilised persons that since only a quarter of a million people are involved the whole thing can- not be taken seriously. Though the South Tyrol question may he preposterous it is not in the least funny: certainly not to the South Tyrolese.
[ Bernard Levin is in Nigeria: he will be reporting from Lagos next week. Briefly, the story is as follows. Italy was given the territory south of the Alpine watershed by the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919. The whole Tyrol, north, east and south, has been ethnically and culturally German since the invasions of the eighth-ninth centuries which repopulated all tttope. Feudal serfdom never existed there; as m the Swiss Cantons the peasants were always free owners of land or tenants, and this tradi- tional freedom plays a part in their attitude today (it can be seen just as clearly in the Austrian Tyrol, but is not a problem there because the Austrian Provinces have considerable local free- dom of administration).
During the Fascist period in Italy the German _Minority were oppressed—forbidden even to learn their own language in the schools. But in 1938 Hitler and Mussolini came to terms: Hitler Promised never to claim the South Tyrol if Mussolini agreed to the Anschluss, which would bring the Wehrmacht to the Alpine border; and a Population transfer was embarked on to move the South Tyrolese mountain peasants into Ger- man territory. After the war, however, under the influence of the Americans, Italy behaved generously to these Stateless, homeless peasants; most of those who had left returned, and those who had stayed opted for Italian citizenship; and in 1949 an agreenient was signed in Paris between Italy and Austria which gave the populations of the German-speaking Bolzano Province, and of the neighbouring bilingual townships of the Trento Province, 'the exercise of autonomous legislative and executive regional .power.'
In the meanwhile, however, the Italian Govern- ment had joined the whole Trento Province to Bolzano (South Tyrol), without the promised consultation of the local population, thus ensur- ing a permanent Italian majority on the Regional Council, since almost all Trento is Italian. And since then, nearly all attempts to introduce regional laws by the German minority have either been rejected in Council, or by Rome in the course of parliamentary review.
The South Tyrol is prosperous; its income and living standards compare favourably with the rest of Italy. But in the South Tyrol it is notice- able to the most superficial traveller that Provincial employees are overwhelmingly Italian; and not Alpine Italians, but, so to speak, imported Italians. The Tyrolese claim that jobs at all levels, and places in the very large State housing projects—larger than in similar Italian towns—are still given exclusively to Italians. The law that local labour must be exhausted before employment offices may import workers is ignored in Bolzano; and it is an observable fact that workers' flats in Bolzano are largely occu- pied by Italians from other parts of Italy. Though the Italian population of the Province is only 34 per cent., Italians hold 84 per cent. of the official jobs. Of 113 police officials in Bolzano town, only a single post is held by a German, and in • This subject is also discussed in a leader on page 764. the provincial finance offices there are 275 Italian officials and four Tyrolese.
It will be said with justice that the region is part of Italy. But so is the Aosta valley with 80,000 French-speaking and 20,000 Italian-speak- ing inhabitants, which is also a border province. Aosta has far greater autonomy in law and fact than Bolzano, and it is an autonomy just like hers that the Tyrolese want. The Italians fear that if the South Tyrol were given a real autonomy like Aosta or Sicily a movement would arise to de- tach the region altogether from the Italian State. I would venture the personal opinion that such- a fear is unfounded. The South Tyrolese like being between two worlds; it is their natural state. The Austrians—the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs assured me—are ready to enter into a solemn agreement never to raise any ques- tion of frontier revision—they do not, M fact, raise it now—if South Tyrol should be granted the same autonomy over her local affairs that Aosta and Sicily have already.
The recent decision of the United Nations, that Italy and Austria should discuss and settle the South Tyrol question between themselves, may mean that the acrimonious but lackadaisical con- versations taking place up to now will become genuine discussions. That the question was brought before the UN at all was probably a piece of election politics on the part of Socialist Foreign Minister Kreisky to gain favour with the staunchly conservative North Tyrolese; and it was ill-timed. All the same, it may lead to good. It is preposterous that two neighbouring countries
Previous page