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Originally Posted by jaro
I was speaking about the region Trentino-Alto Adige which consists of 2 provinces - Bolzano and Trento. In the whole region, there is only 35% of German speakers, while in Bolzano its 69%. As far as I know the whole region (Bolzano + Trento) was part of Austria, and nothing was attached to it to lower the proportion of German speakers.
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Call it irony of history, but Italy transformed the tactic it once fought against into working for itself. What is today Südtirol has always been a predominantly German speaking region, while what is today Trentino has bee a predominantly Italian speaking region. The Irridenta movement of the Italians worked against the inclusion of that Italian parts into Südtirol, but saw itself in the overall region in the role of the minority. As you certainly know it succeeded in the end, but what did they do? Instead of taking what is theirs they longed for more. There was absolutely no legitimation along ethnical lines to annex what is today Südtirol. The Italians were a very small minority there. Italy did in fact just turn the game around and after WWI held then a German speaking province with the argument that it belongs to the larger region that has in sum an Italian majority.
What is today Südtirol is a predominantly German speaking region and always has been. Of course you can say that the unjust historical borders of former Südtirol of the monarchy were not changed, just the side for which they are unjust, but thats another thing.
I think the essential point you either miss out is that the region of Südtirol-Trentino has lost most of its power under the treaty between Italy and Austria in the 60's. While the region still exists, the two provinces have now most of the real power and are both autonomous.
Südtirol is an autonomous political entity on its own nowadays and not vaguely dissolved in a larger region. Trient may be still the official capital of the common region, but in terms of effective political power it has been rendered unimportant.
The autonomy of Südtirol itself (independently from Trentino or the larger common region) has been written into the Italian constitution. This "autonomous province Bozen" as it is called is still predominantly German speaking and its also the area I referred to originally.
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It is impossible that the whole region could some day be returned to Austria. The inconsistency you discovered is actually caused by the fact, that the whole region Trentino-Alto Adige is sometimes referred to as South Tyrol, but this name is also used for the Bolzano province of Trentino-Alto Adige. I was speaking about the region, you about the province. In the future, however it is possible that Bolzano province could be reunited with Austria if Austria manages to convince Italians to either return it for free or to sell it.
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Exactly, I was speaking about the autonomous province of Bozen, aka the province Süttirol.
I could not see any reason why Trentino should renunite with Austria.
Perhaps we come to the point now. I dont see any need for Südtirol (the province of course) to reunite with Austria. A working and effective autonomy is totally fine for me. For South Tyrolians its not so important anyway, Innsbruck is not further away than before and since the border controls have vanished between main Tirol and Südtirol the situation has further normalized.
I do for similar reasons believe that the best solution for North Ireland is an effective autonomy that is acceptable for both sides. To be honest I think North Ireland has good chances to get back to normality again after decades if not centuries.
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The difference between South Tyrol and NI is also geographical - NI belongs geographically to Ireland, while the same cannot be said about South Tyrol.
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I have no idea in how far this should matter.
Furthermore Tirol is divided by a row of mountain chains. According to your argument each valley of Tirol would be a different geographical region.
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