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Using South Tyrol to solve Ukraine? Don't be stupid

The Italian minister of foreign affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, said that Italy’s mostly German-speaking region is an example for solving ethnic disputes in Ukraine and beyond. This is a flawed and dangerous piece of advice.

By Alessio Colonnelli
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Corvara_01[1].jpg
Corvara_01[1].jpg

A typical South Tyrolean landscape. Wikipedia/Kuebi. Public domain.Would you ever think of suggesting that the eastern half of Ukraine (Europe’s largest country), steeped in a dramatic conflict bearing serious global repercussions, should look at forty-one times smaller South Tyrol for solutions?

Chances are most of you wouldn’t. But the Italian minister of foreign affairs Paolo Gentiloni did: he told the audience gathered on 9 February at Bloomberg’s summit in New York “Italy: We are Open for Business” that the Ukrainian crisis could in his view be overcome by adopting an ethnic model akin to South Tyrol’s.

A model? Think again: Italy’s irrelevance there is now as tangible as never before

Emotionally speaking, South Tyrol is light years away from Rome; and quite understandably so. More and more South Tyroleans are in fact unlearning Italian; they just don’t need it. Italy being there is as foreign a thing as you like. Why should it be otherwise, after all?

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