The Austrian government has announced it will grant Italians living in South Tyrol, Italy, citizenship with Austria, an aggressive move that will further nationalism and division in Europe:
Italy’s foreign minister has cancelled a meeting with his Austrian counterpart over Vienna’s plans to grant citizenship to the German-speaking residents in the northern Italian province of South Tyrol.
The proposal by Austria’s ruling conservative and far-right coalition “deteriorates the climate of mutual serenity and trust, which make up the essential foundations for the success of this type of meeting,” the office of Enzo Moavero Milanesi said on Monday.
It denounced Austria’s “anachronistic desire for revenge” in light of this year’s centennial anniversary of the end of the first world war. The mountainous region of South Tyrol, also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, was part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire before being annexed by Italy as an autonomous province after war.
About 70% of locals said they were German speakers in the last census carried out in 2011.
South Tyrol’s status has been a point of contention for decades. The latest spat erupted earlier this month when Rome said Vienna had confirmed the creation of a special commission to prepare a draft law for the dual nationality proposal.
Italy called the plan “inappropriate because of its potentially disturbing consequences”.
The country’s foreign ministry said: “It is particularly bizarre that the Austrian government, which holds the EU presidency, promotes law projects that stoke discord instead of focusing on initiatives that unite.”Italy’s foreign minister has cancelled a meeting with his Austrian counterpart over Vienna’s plans to grant citizenship to the German-speaking residents in the northern Italian province of South Tyrol.
The proposal by Austria’s ruling conservative and far-right coalition “deteriorates the climate of mutual serenity and trust, which make up the essential foundations for the success of this type of meeting,” the office of Enzo Moavero Milanesi said on Monday.
It denounced Austria’s “anachronistic desire for revenge” in light of this year’s centennial anniversary of the end of the first world war. The mountainous region of South Tyrol, also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, was part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire before being annexed by Italy as an autonomous province after war.
About 70% of locals said they were German speakers in the last census carried out in 2011.
South Tyrol’s status has been a point of contention for decades. The latest spat erupted earlier this month when Rome said Vienna had confirmed the creation of a special commission to prepare a draft law for the dual nationality proposal.
Italy called the plan “inappropriate because of its potentially disturbing consequences”.
The country’s foreign ministry said: “It is particularly bizarre that the Austrian government, which holds the EU presidency, promotes law projects that stoke discord instead of focusing on initiatives that unite.” (source)
South Tyrol is a region in the northernmost point of Italy with Austria. Shoebat.com covered this in December 2017, where we warned that doing such would promote secession in Italy and with it, German nationalism.
South Tyrol has been a point of contention between Italy and Austria because while the region is a part of Italy that she received after World War I, she is “German” in her culture and for many of the people, by ethnic association. To give Italian nationals Austrian citizenship is to promote Austrian imperialism on the basis of blood-and-soil nationalism without saying it directly.
This is consistent with the patterns of nationalism taking place across Europe today, where small regions with histories of ethnic and cultural rivalry are starting to “assert” themselves and their desire for statehood, when the reality is they are simply dividing up Europe into small regions that can be more easily conquered. A major example of this is in Catalonia, where the calls for “Catalan nationalism” have divided the nation and not coincidentally, Germany has stood by the defense of the Catalan terrorists against the Spanish government. A similar case is happening in Belgium, with the rise of “Flemish separatism”, again being supported by Germany.
A look at German history from her earliest days shows a consistent pattern of blood-and-soil nationalism pervaded by periods of identity crises that inevitably result in war with her neighbors using ethnic divisions as a catalyst. This is complicated by the fact that German people are not limited to the lands of Germany, but have a natural spread all across the European continent in both Western and Eastern Europe. In the name of “pan-Germanism” or its equivalent for a particular time, she will call on racial bonds to justify German supremacy against other races, such as the Latins or Slavs, and use this as the reason for militarily invading and subjugating them. She will ally with the peoples of Anatolia to do this, which once was the Byzantine Empire, then the Ottoman Empire, then modern Turkey to achieve this goal.
There is no reason for Austria to grant such citizenship to people in South Tyrol unless they intentionally want to cause divisions. It would be similar to the US saying they would grant citizenship to all people native to lower Ontario- it is only going to start trouble.
But Germany and Austria want trouble. They wanted it in the early 20th century and received the First World War, and they wanted it several decades later an in turn had the Second World War.
It has not even been a century since Germany was defeated in World War II, and there is yet to be a century in which Europe is not involved in yet some kind of inter-continental conflict that included the Germanic lands.
Beware the rumblings of war.