3 October 2012
Last updated at 08:13 ET
By Bethany Bell
BBC News, South Tyrol (Alto Adige)
Largely German-speaking South Tyrol has been part of Italy since the end of World War I
In the vineyards of South Tyrol's Alpine valleys, the grape harvest is under way.
Alois Lageder's family have made wine here for five
generations, but when some of the vines were planted,
this region was
part of Austria. And most people here speak German, even though it has been part of Italy since the end of World War I.
Mr Lageder says the mix of cultures is an asset. "We are Austrians, we were Austrians 100 years ago and so we
have the Austrian culture, but also the Austrian or German mentality and
approach to work," he said.
Local wine maker Alois Lageder believes South Tyrol's people are Austrians at heart
"But I think we are lucky because living here in the middle
between north and south, we are not too strong or too straight. I think
this is our big advantage, that we understand the Italian mentality but
we understand the mentality of our big markets like Austria and Germany
and Switzerland."
South Tyrol is Italy's richest province, a largely
German-speaking part of the country that has autonomous status. Its
Italian name is Alto Adige.
But now the euro crisis means the Italian government wants to
cash in. It is asking the regional government here to pay more,
fuelling resentment of Rome and raising the spectre of separatism.
Tensions
German speakers are the local majority in South Tyrol - but
native Italian speakers live here too. Relations between the two groups
have not always been easy.
The journalist and author Lucio Giudiceandrea says before the
region was granted autonomy in the 1970s, tensions sometimes ran to
violence. "Germans and Italians lived for many years in conflict with
each other because South Tyrol was annexed to Italy at the end of World
War I against the will of the local German-speaking population. The
Italians were sent here as colonisers and there is a longstanding
hostility between the groups," he said. "The autonomy system [set up in the 1970s] gave us the chance to live side by side, but with no great contacts."
Over the years, tensions have eased. Being bilingual is now
an accepted fact of life; members of Italy's national police, the
Carabinieri, are regularly sent to brush up their German at the Alpha
Beta Piccadilly language school in Bolzano.
But these days, Italy's financial problems are reawakening old resentments.
Tax gripes
Walking through the affluent streets of Bolzano, with its
quaint Tyrolean architecture, it is easy to come away with the
impression that South Tyrol is remarkably untouched by the euro crisis.
Unemployment is low and business is thriving. But, as in
other wealthy parts of Europe, many German speakers here resent having
to bail out southern Italians - whom they see as spendthrift and
profligate.
Elmar Thaler, Federation, Historic South Tyrolean
Riflemen: 'People are asking why we should have to pay for Italy. We are
not actually Italians anyway. ' Up to now, 90% of taxes paid here stayed here.
But the government in Rome needs cash, and wants more money from South Tyrol. Siegfried Brugger, an MP from the governing South Tyrolean
Peoples' party, says that goes against their autonomy agreement. But he
says they are willing to negotiate. "We have a lot of problems because we have to give a lot of
money to Rome," he said. "But we want to decide ourselves how and where
to save and for us it is very important to collaborate with Italy and
not to give money without a guarantee."
And some people want to leave Italy altogether. The
500-year-old group, the Südtiroler Schützenbund
(the Federation of
Historic South Tyrolean Riflemen), has long campaigned for reunification
with North Tyrol, which is part of Austria.
Separatism calls
In April, the group organised a protest in Bolzano demanding
freedom from Rome. It was attended by around 5,000 men and women in
lederhosen and traditional dress. The Schützen's leader, Elmar Thaler,
says the worse things get economically, the better it is for their
cause.
Elmar Thaler says South Tyrol should separate completely from Rome.
"People are asking why should we have to pay for Italy?" he
asked. "We aren't actually Italian anyway. In this way, the crisis has
made many people aware that they haven't got anything to do with Italy."
This is a minority view. Separatism is not the hot political
issue that it is in the Spanish province of Catalonia, and the Schuetzen
say they are not linked to other Italian separatist movements, like the
Northern League.But Siegfried Brugger says many politicians in South Tyrol
are watching developments in places like the Basque Country and Scotland
very closely.
Lucio Giudiceandrea says the region is at a turning point. "The situation in Italy and all over Europe is no longer certain and the money is no longer freely available," he said. "I think we have to learn to live with the other group and to
see each other not as rivals but as friends. If we don't, for sure we
will fall into conflicts. And of course this situation depends only on
us."
On a sunny day in Bolzano, the cafes do a roaring trade in
cappuccino, as a street musician in a Tyrolean hat with a feather plays
that most Austrian of tunes, the Blue Danube. The financial crisis is
testing Europe's historic fault-lines.
