South Tyrol: A Chink in the EU's Armour

https://www.thelocal.it/20181018/italy-and-austria-at-odds-over-south-tyrol-dual-citizenship

The region of South Tyrol doesn't normally make it into the news. An alpine wonderland, for most it's just part of northern Italy and yet its story is far more complicated. It's actually one of the dozens of potential 'trouble spots' within Europe that retain the possibility of future political turmoil and unrest. South Tyrol isn't a 'hot spot' like Kosovo or even as contentious as Transylvania, Ulster or Catalonia but it still has the potential to generate trouble. The EU was supposed to eliminate these tensions, to bring these cycles of history to an end and yet history just won't go away. And as Brussels weakens, history is rearing its head.

The story itself is minor but is a reminder that the modern state is a somewhat tenuous enterprise. We take our states for granted and the powerful centralised state that is the United States was able to form and function largely in isolation from historical forces. It could be argued the Southwest is one area in which history is beginning to rear its head as the region was taken from Mexico and while effectively assimilated, it was never assimilated in the way say Michigan or Nebraska were.

The unification of Italy was at the expense of other powers which had long dominated the peninsula. By some estimations the biggest loser was the Pope himself, as the Papal States were eliminated and it would seem have little chance of returning. Additionally the Papal States did not develop a unique culture that would prove the custodian of an idea and with it an irredentist aspiration. Even today North and South Italy remain divided. The League Party got its start as the League of the North, a secessionist party wishing to divorce prosperous, industrial Northern Italy from its impoverished and mafia-afflicted southern cousins. Under Salvini the party transformed and directed its vitriol not towards Rome but towards Brussels. And yet, if the EU was gone, the old tensions within Italy would quickly resurface. But within the North itself there's another area of tension, namely South Tyrol.

The alpine region was not part of the 19^th century unification process. It (along with Trieste and the eastern portions of Friuli) was simply annexed by Italy in the wake of WWI, a prize for Italy's entry into the war on the part of the allies. Even though it's been part of Italy for a century the region remains largely German and retains deep cultural ties to North Tyrol which is in the present state of Austria. It has not assimilated and yet a significant Italian population has now complicated its status.

Of course Austria itself is in some aspects a modern creation. Created after WWI, it is a conglomeration of the core Austrian states which were the heartland or centre of Habsburg rule. The new state also incorporated regions such as Carinthia, Styria and even Burgenland which had been peeled off from the largely dismantled Kingdom of Hungary. Tyrol was divided into Austrian Tyrol and South Tyrol which became part of Italy.

The modern post-Habsburg Austria represents a diminished state. Once the dominant power in Central and much of Eastern Europe, the modern state of Austria is a tiny remnant, a memory of past empire. South Tyrol had no desire to be part of Italy but as pawns on the chessboard they were traded off by the Allied leaders. Self-determination didn't apply to the German speaking peoples of the Habsburg lands. Woodrow Wilson it seems was particularly determined to dismantle their empire.

During the period of Nazi domination it would have been easy enough for Hitler to move South Tyrol into post-Anschluss Austria (and thus the Reich) by the mere stroke of a pen. The population wouldn't have resisted. However, Italy was of course Hitler's important ally and he wasn't about to dismantle the political boundaries of a state he hoped would greatly aid his cause.

Granted a degree of autonomy after WWII, the region was nevertheless to remain part of Italy. This even led to a small-scale terrorist insurgency which operated in the 1950's and 1960's, so deep was the antagonism to being politically united to the government in Rome.

The Italians ruled with a light hand and the region also became notorious for being a hot-bed of ex-Nazis in the decades following the war. It was a key stop-off point on the Ratlines but there were also many ex-Nazis who settled there. They felt culturally at home and relatively safe.

Decades later the region is still pushing for secession from Italy and to re-unite with North Tyrol and thus Austria. And the Right-wing forces in Vienna are happy (it would seem) to foster this momentum. This is but one of many regions that retain these tensions. The EU was supposed to create a new sense of nationality and identity and thus these old squabbles over political boundaries would become obsolete and moot.

And yet the EU has clearly failed and if anything its momentum has been reversed.  What would an EU break-up look like? How many of these regions would descend into instability and even war? Does it seem unlikely? History says otherwise.

It's interesting how both Austria and Italy have embraced Right-wing politics. Obviously Salvini lost in his recent gamble and is no longer in power. However the dual passport issue arose under his tenure and while Right-wing politics in Austria and Italy were and are united in their opposition to Brussels these same nationalist forces work against each other when it comes to territorial claims and battles over cultural symbols, education and the like.

At present the 'Right' resistance to Brussels is found in Austria, Italy and the V4 nations of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. However united they might be contra Brussels, they have their own historic difficulties. Hungary and Slovakia don't always get along as Slovakia was part of the kingdom of Hungary for nearly a millennium. Hungary and Austria have some minor territorial issues. As mentioned there are also some boundary issues between Italy and Austria. Greece has also come back under Right-wing government and they certainly have territorial issues with their neighbours. Greece's rich and expansive history means it has many historical claims and for nationalists the small modern state is an insult and a humiliation. Despite Greece's issues with Macedonia, Bulgaria and Albania their real bitterness is of course directed toward Turkey. People largely forget that Cyprus while stable is hardly pacified and the conflict, the centuries old animosity which flared up in 1974 could very easily be re-kindled... again this is especially true if NATO or the EU were to collapse. Turkey is not an EU member but it still remains (officially) part of the NATO alliance. Washington used to keep Athens and Istanbul in check but what does the future hold?

None of these are flashpoints or particularly pressing dangers but again history demonstrates they can come to the fore quickly enough and thus they bear watching.