Centre for the Study of Conflict
University of Ulster

CONTENTS

A. E. Alcock, New University of Ulster

In countries where cultural minorities exist in a compact area of the state the practice of using the civil service as an instrument for their protection in an employment and representational capacity is one whose scope varies widely. At one end of the spectrum there are those countries where respect for cultural minorities is relatively weak, and there is no obligation for the civil service to communicate with members of cultural minorities in a language other than the official one. Such is the situation in France. At the other end of the spectrum there is the situation in the Aaland Islands, an area of the Finnish state inhabited entirely by Swedish-speaking citizens, where the civil service is made up entirely by members of the Swedish minority. In between these two extremes the situation in multicultural countries such as Switzerland should be noted. In the Helvetian Republic the obligation is for members of the national civil service to be at least bilingual while in the cantons the local civil service uses the official language of that canton and in the case of bilingual cantons (or the trilingual canton of The Grisons) the same principle applies as with the national civil service. But neither in the case of the national civil service nor in the bilingual cantons or The Grisons is the principle of ethnic or linguistic proportions evoked with regard to employment. In Belgium, where the Flemish and Walloon communities inhabit generally compact and definable areas of the state, the two groups have their own civil services in parallel.

Only in Cyprus has an attempt been made to employ persons in the national civil service on a basis of ethnic proportions. The experience was unhappy and one of the causes of the break-up of the state. One of the reasons for this was that the proportions used in the civil service did not reflect the true proportions of the respective Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot populations.¹

This paper will examine the attempts made since 1972 to recruit civil servants in national-level government offices operating in South Tyrol in order to bring about and preserve a ratio reflecting the proportions between the German-speaking, Italian-speaking and Ladin-speaking populations of that area. According to the 1971 census 62.9 per cent of the population was German-speaking, 33.3 per cent Italian-speaking, and 3.7 per cent Ladin-speaking, with, and this will take on more significance later, 0.1 per cent apparently belonging to none of the three above-mentioned groups.² For the purposes of this paper, however, the German-speaking and Ladin-speaking populations will be taken together, giving that group 66.6 per cent.

References to "national-level government offices" include Posts and Telegraphs, the Railways, the Judiciary, Teachers, Social Security organisations and other government Ministries operating in the local area, such as the Treasury, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Housing, etc. The various Italian police forces are excluded because in Italy they are technically part of the Armed Forces. References to "provincial-level government offices" include the provincial administration of South Tyrol (or, to give its titles, the Province of Bozen for the German-speaking element, and the Province of Bolzano for Italians) as well as the administration of the 116 communes (local district councils) in the Province.

South Tyrol was taken away from Austria and given to Italy by the victorious Allies in 1919 following the first World War. The South Tyrolese, who formed 90 per cent of the population of the area,³ were very hostile to this transfer, and for two reasons. On the one hand, they had been denied the right of self-determination, one of the apparent bases of the post-war settlement. On the other hand, the award clearly contravened Point 9 of President Wilson's Fourteen Points, another apparent basis for the post-war settlement.⁴ The democratic government of Italy gave assurances that the cultural identity of the South Tyrolese would be respected, but declined to give such an undertaking with respect to the German character of the area.⁵ However, when the Fascists came to power Mussolini tried to denationalise the German character not only of the area but of the local population as well. A policy of cultural genocide was adopted; industry - and an Italian industrial proletariat to work it - was sent to what had been an entirely agricultural area; and the administration became exclusively Italian. Italian was the only language used in public offices and was the only language used in schools. South Tyrolese were excluded from serving in public offices and from working in industry.⁶ By the time of the outbreak of the Second World War the South Tyrolese percentage of the population had fallen to 75 per cent, and by 1943 to just over 60 per cent.⁷

After the Second World War the South Tyrolese sought to return to Austria, but, for a number of reasons, the victorious Allies decided that Italy should keep the area.⁸ However, the Allies, aware of the measures undertaken by Mussolini against the German-speaking population, promoted a treaty between Austria and Italy in 1946 under which South Tyrol could have an autonomy, including its own Parliament.⁹ Some of the articles of the treaty are relevant to this paper:

Article 1:
"German-speaking inhabitants of the Bolzano Province and of the neighbouring bilingual townships of the Trento Province will be assured a complete equality of rights with Italian-speaking inhabitants within the framework of special provisions to safeguard the ethnical character and the cultural and economic development of the German-speaking element.

In accordance with legislation already enacted or awaiting enactment the said German-speaking citizens will be granted in particular:

(a) ...

(b) ...

(c) ...

(d) equality of rights as regards the entering upon public offices with a view to reaching a more appropriate proportion of employment between the two ethnical groups.

Article 2:
"The population of the above-mentioned zones will be granted the exercise of autonomous legislative and executive regional power. The frame within which the said provisions of autonomy will apply, will be drafted in consultation also with local representative German-speaking elements."

But the Italians were afraid, with reason, that the South Tyrolese had not given up the idea of self-determination which, at that time, was considered as a separatist concept.¹⁰ Therefore the Autonomy Statute which was promulgated in 1948.¹¹ to give effect to the Austro-Italian treaty combined the two Provinces of Bolzano and Trento into one Region, Trentino-Alto Adige, but maintaining the Provinces as separate identities with powers of their own. However, since the Province of Trento had a larger population than that of Bolzano, and, in addition, was 99% Italian, the Italians had a two-thirds majority in the Region as a whole while the South Tyrolese enjoyed a similar majority in Bolzano. What was decisive was that the powers of the Region were wide; those of the Provinces miserable. The Region controlled agriculture, tourism, industrial development. The Provinces could legislate in the fields of Fairs and Markets, Local Activity in the Arts, Handicrafts. The economic and social development of the German-speaking South Tyrolese was therefore in the hands of the Italian region, behind which lay the Italian state.

The problems with Article 1(d) of the Austro-Italian Treaty were five. First, what were "public offices"? Did they refer to the provincial administration only, or did they also include state offices operating in the Province of Bolzano? Second, what was meant by the words "a more appropriate proportion of employment"? Third, once the words "a more appropriate proportion of employment" had been defined, how would one go about achieving it when, as a legacy of Fascism, all the civil servants in the Province were Italian? Fourth, what method should be used for ascertaining the true proportions between the two ethnic groups? Fifth, was 'equality of rights" the best way of going about getting "a more appropriate proportion of employment" in public offices?

The period between 1948 and 1969 was characterised, on the one hand, by Italian slowness in implementing the Autonomy Statute and ignoring the economic development of the Province of Bolzano. They refused to apply the principle of ethnic proportions in state offices operating in the Province outright,¹² but allowed it (eventually) in the provincial administration and the communes. This refusal to apply ethnic proportions in state offices was linked to the fact that Italians would have to leave the service to make way for South Tyrolese, but to the extent that it was unlikely that they would find alternative employment in the Province it would mean that those who left would actually have to leave the Province. When one took into account that those departing would be taking with them their wives and children, there was the real fear that departures in large numbers of civil servants would lead to a serious weakening of the italianità of the Province of Bolzano. On the other hand, there was the legacy of Fascism's denationalisation policy - the sharp contrast between the economic and social situation of the two ethnic groups.

The Italians were to be found in the towns, in industry. The Fifties and Sixties were boom years. Industry was doing well. The civil service, national and provincial, was well paid with good pensions. The South Tyrolese, on the other hand, were overwhelmingly farmers, mostly on poor alpine farms. Unfortunately, the agricultural sector was stagnant and, except for the prosperous fruit and wine farms, in decline. Between 1951 and 1971 the active population in agriculture would decline from 62,000 (42 per cent of the active population) to 31,000 (21 per cent), and the problem was how to absorb those coming off the land.¹³

The fact was that all the levers of job mobility were in the hands of the Italian state or Italian-dominated region - money for housing; economic development policy-making and decision-making. And it was that that sparked off the struggle by the South Tyrolese (which involved some terrorism orchestrated from Austria and West Germany by neo-nazis) to have their province raised to the status of a region, with all the accompanying powers of economic development. This included the demand for ethnic proportions in state offices and institutions operating in the Province - a source of some 15,000 well-paid and pensionable jobs, as well as the right to serve in the Province - i.e., that one should not be transferred against one's will to serve elsewhere in Italy.¹⁴

Why was it that the South Tyrolese insisted on having ethnic proportions in state public offices, a principle that ran counter to that of "equality of rights"? "Equality of Rights" had been inserted into the 1946 Austro-Italian treaty in order to ensure that fascist-type discrimination against the South Tyrolese should not be repeated, but the South Tyrolese felt that members of a 0.5 per cent minority in the Italian state would have little chance of getting jobs in open competition against the 99.5 per cent Italian majority, and they frankly wanted their own kind to work and help in the running of their homeland.

In 1969 the South Tyrolese very largely got their way. By an agreement between them and the Austrian and Italian governments known as the "Paket", although the Region Trentino-Alto Adige was maintained, the Provinces of Bolzano and Trento got almost all the important powers regarding the economy, and the South Tyrolese also obtained the right to have ethnic proportions in state institutions operating in the Province (with the exception of the police) and the right of South Tyrolese employees in these institutions not to be transferred out of the Province against their will.

All these concessions were contained in a revised Autonomy Statute which was promulgated in 1972.¹⁵ Ten years later, how had things turned out in practice? The answer: very differently.

One of the most important issues in any divided society is that of group and individual identification. In South Tyrol it was vital for the individual to identify himself with one of the three linguistic groups in the Province.

One went to the school of one's group.

Public housing was allocated on the principle of ethnic proportions.

As a teacher one taught in a school of one's language group (unless one taught one's language in a school of another group).

Posts in the provincial administration were allocated on the basis of ethnic proportions.

Key posts depended on membership of a group in the sense that if a senior post was held by a member of one group his deputy had to come from the other group.

Since government, both of the province as a whole and the 116 communes. was based on the principle of sharing power between the three main groups, the composition of the governments in question had to reflect the ethnic proportions of the elected representatives, which meant that unless one was a member of one of the groups in question one could not stand for office.

Since the whole system depended, first, on knowing what the ethnic proportions in the Province were, and second, on the individual declaring his ethnic allegiance, how were these matters handled? And here the first problems arose.

In Italy the first post-war census, 1951, did not ask the individual inhabitants of South Tyrol to what group he or she belonged. This question was not asked until the 1961 (and 1971) censuses. But in the 1948 Autonomy Statute's implementation the Italian government had conceded the principle of ethnic proportions in the provincial administration. How did one know what these were?

The answer was to take the ethnic proportions amongst the elected representatives of the provincial parliament.¹⁶ At the time this was quite normal. Italians and South Tyrolese in the Province disliked each other cordially. The South Tyrolese were angered at having to remain with Italy and at having the economic and social development of themselves and their homeland in the hands of the Italians. The South Tyrolese had their own political party which drew regularly over 95 per cent of the German ethnic vote, and to vote, let alone stand for an Italian party was simply ethnic treason. For the Italians the memory of the war and the German occupation and the availability of the whole spectrum of political parties from the neo-fascists on the right to parties more extreme than the communists on the left ensured that they too voted and stood ethnically. In the period 1952 to 1969 the South Tyrolese group regularly provided 68 per cent of the vote, with 32 per cent going to the Italians. These percentages were not quite the 66.6 per cent of the 1961 and 1971 censuses but was near enough.

But then in the Seventies the situation changed. In the 1973 provincial elections the P.C.I. ran a German-speaking candidate and he was elected, with the result that the German-speaking group now had 71 per cent of the elected representatives. And in the 1978 elections both the P.C.I. and the New Left successfully ran German-speaking candidates, thus raising that group's proportion up to 74 per cent. Not only was this a not inconsiderable departure from the actual ethnic proportions in the Province, but it contrasted with the way ethnic proportions were calculated for posts in the state administration in the Province, which was, of course, on the basis of the census.

However, in recent years a second problem has been becoming serious, one that concerned the question of the ethnic allegiance of the individual in South Tyrol.

As previously mentioned, in the Fifties and Sixties everyone not only knew to what group he belonged but was proud of it. In those years almost the entire Italian population of the Province was an immigrant one - from Venice, Milan, Trento, or further south. And for reasons of ethnic solidarity mixed marriages were few and far between. The South Tyrolese were adamantly hostile to them because they feared - and research tended to support them - that the children of mixed marriages would turn out to be more "Italian" than "German".

But by the Seventies things were changing. First, an ever-increasing number of Italians were now native-born South Tyrolers, or, as they called themselves- "Altoatesini". Second, the number of mixed marriages began to rise, bringing into question the ethnic identity of the child.

Under the 1972 Autonomy Statute it was laid down that for the system of ethnic protection to operate everyone had to give a formal declaration at the time of the census (the next one being in 1981) which would be registered and held by the individual's commune.¹⁷ But the New Left party began to question just why anyone should - by law -be obliged to give a declaration as to which group he or she belonged if that person either did not want or felt he could not adequately reply. The Party pointed out that in the 1971 census nearly 500 persons declared that they did not belong to any of the three groups in the Province (they were Slovenes, or Hungarians, and some were Englishwomen who had married South Tyrolese or Altoatesini). For these to have to declare that they belonged to one group or another would mean forcible assimilation. The Party pointed out that there were now some 4,000 mixed marriages in the Province, involving some 12,000 children, most of them perfectly bilingual. Why should they be forced to choose the cultural identity of one of their parents if they felt equally at home in both cultures? This too amounted to forced assimilation. And in any case, since the parents had to give a declaration for their children, how would one decide to which group the child belonged? Under the Family Law Reform Act of 1975¹⁸ this right no longer belonged to the father alone but to the parents jointly. What if they could not agree? What if the parents agreed but the child disagreed with their choice? Yet it was vital for a choice to be made since failure to do so would in the future - or at least until the next census (one had the right to change from one census to another) - entail substantial loss of rights in jobs, housing and political representation.

The New Left therefore wanted to know why any resident of the Province should not have the right to decide not to belong to one of the three language groups but simply be considered South Tyrolese or Altoatesini in the broadest sense of the word without suffering the consequences.¹⁹ The Party also provided the powerful argument that loss of rights because of the inability or unwillingness to declare that one belonged to one of the three language groups in the Province was incompatible with Article 3 of the Italian Constitution, which provided for equality of rights for all citizens without distinction as to sex, race, religion, political belief - or language!

The Party decided to test this issue, so at the time of the 1978 Provincial elections, one NL candidate declared that he belonged to no group and one declared that he belonged to both the German and Italian groups. Both were disqualified, and an appeal to the Council of State was rejected only on the technical grounds that they had not appealed within the given time.²⁰ NL candidates were disqualified for the same reasons at the time of the 1980 commune elections. Their appeal is still being heard.

The New Left have been undertaking a campaign against the obligation to give the appropriate declaration at the time of the 1981 census (scheduled for October), urging people not to give it. If substantial numbers of people follow their advice then a serious situation will arise: the whole system of ethnic proportions, which was designed to protect the German-speaking population in the Italian state would be in jeopardy because the Italian government could hardly ignore loss of rights for large numbers. One way out has been to propose that those who cannot or will not give the declaration to be classed automatically with the Italian group. They would then have the rights of that group. On the other hand, they would be assimilated", which they might neither like or agree to.

Following the question of ethnic identity, the next big problem to arise was also one not considered at the time the fight for an improved autonomy was taking place.

Under the 1972 Autonomy Statute ethnic proportions in the various state administrations operating in the Province had to be achieved by the year 2002.²¹ Excluding teachers and police forces this involved just over 7,100 posts, and in 1975 some 6,000 were filled - 5,100 by Italians and 900 by South Tyrolese.²² But the South Tyrolese had a right to 4,750 posts and the Italians to 2,350. The task, therefore, was to reduce the Italian presence by some 2,700 posts and increase the South Tyrolese presence by some 3,850.

It never occurred to anyone - South Tyrolese or Italian - to ask what would happen if the South Tyrolese, who had fought so bitterly to have posts in the state administration operating in the Province filled in ethnic proportions, and thus appeared to have won a rich source of employment for the group, as well as the right to serve only in the Province, should fail to take advantage of it. Yet this is what happened: far fewer South Tyrolese than expected applied for jobs, fewer passed the appropriate exams, and fewer still actually took up the post if successful. The most recent figures show that only 71 per cent of posts reserved for South Tyrolese were competed for, only 51 per cent passed the exams, and only 56 per cent of the successful candidates then took up the job. With regard to the Italian group, if twice as many competed as there were jobs for them, only one-third passed the exams, and less than half the successful candidates subsequently took up their post.²³ Why was this?

Essentially there were four reasons. First, there was the imprint of tradition. It was hard for German-speaking Italians to overcome the tradition of not having worked in state employment for over 50 years, having been first excluded by the Fascists in the interwar period and then experiencing the difficulties of "equality of rights" and the possibility of transfer out of the Province in the normal course of duty in the postwar period.

Second, there was competition from other sectors of employment, in particular the provincial administration, the teaching profession and tourism.

With its increased powers, the provincial administration needed more staff, and the numbers employed by it rose from 1,100 in 1968 to 5,100 in 1979 - 4,000 posts, of which nearly 3,000 would be for South Tyrolese. And from the psychological point of view South Tyrolese would rather work in the provincial administration since one would be helping to administer one's homeland.

As for the teaching profession, in the mid-sixties the Italian government introduced obligatory secondary education so the number of pupils almost doubled as did the demand for teachers.²⁴

But the biggest threat of all came from the tourist sector. In the seventies the Province enjoyed a colossal boom in tourism. Among the factors contributing to this boom were the opening of the Brenner Pass autobahn, which made South Tyrol easily accessible to southern Germany in a matter of a few hours; the rise in the value of the Deutsche Mark and the fall in the value of the Lira; West German financial investment, which had led, amongst other things to the construction of no less than nine new ski areas; the ease with which tourist operators were able to avoid paying tax; and the new situation derived from the 1972 Autonomy Statute under which the Province of Bolzano was able to claim 1.6 per cent of almost all Italian government public expenditure. The result was a huge inflow of money which enabled the Provincial government to help borrowers by paying part of the interest on bank loans which, besides being plentiful were hence-forth to be cheap.

The first result was a tremendous expansion in the number of hotels, Pensions, Garnis, swimming-pools, saunas, tennis courts, etc. Second, everyone wanted to own his own tourist business, and many ceased their original trade or occupation. Under these circumstances a career in the state civil service also seemed far less attractive.

Three statistics highlight the situation of the Province in 1979. It was believed that with a local population of less than 500,000 the number of overnight stays amounted to about 26 million.²⁵ It was believed that the Province had more tourist beds than the whole of Greece. The unemployment rate fell to 0.1 per cent.

Unfortunately, the Italian population did not benefit from the boom. As newcomers they owned less than 2 per cent of the land, and very little in the main tourist areas, so they were not involved in either the construction or the owning of tourist establishments. But not only did they not benefit from the boom, they were hit by its adverse effects - the inflation which gave South Tyrol the highest rate of inflation in all Italy. Whereas the rural South Tyrolese were now, in the Seventies, benefiting from tourism (including agro-tourism) as well as agricultural subsidies from the E.E.C., and thus able to keep up with inflation, the Italians in the Province were still concentrated in industry, which was now suffering from inflation and the high cost of raw materials, and the civil service, which was now relatively less well paid and whose pensions were not keeping up with inflation, quite apart from the fact that the Italian presence in it was going to be sharply reduced over the next decades.

But if there was a general reluctance to compete amongst the South Tyrolese, why did relatively few pass the entrance exams? One answer concerned the competition itself. The most important part of this was a language exam. One of the provisions implementing the 1972 Autonomy Statute was that anyone in state employment in the Province (as well as in the provincial administration and that of the communes) had to be in possession of a certificate of competency in both German and Italian. This applied to everyone without exception, not only Directors-General but also cooks, janitors and chauffeurs.²⁶ The certificate was granted after an exam which was harder or easier depending on the grade competed for.

As it happened, the Italian group was far harder hit by the language competition than the South Tyrolese. The obligation not only to be bilingual but to be able to prove it had been insisted upon by the South Tyrolese in the negotiations leading up to the new Autonomy Statute because although Italians formed one-third of the population of the Province very few knew German, or indeed, had felt that they needed to know it.

To begin with, it was not obligatory for Italian schools in the Province to teach German, although to be fair most of them did so. It had not been made obligatory for persons to know German for employment in the provincial administration until 1959. It was not obligatory either to use or to know German in state employment, in industry or in the free professions, and it was in these sectors that the Italian group was overwhelmingly concentrated. In private life there was little contact between the groups: daily activities involving the home, church, sport, school, theatre or cinema were carried on by each group independently of the other. There were few incentives to learn German. A bilingual bonus for employees in the state administration was introduced in 1961,²⁷ but the exam to obtain it was considered to be derisory (which was why the South Tyrolese wanted a real exam) and in any case the amount of the bonus was not changed until 1980, 50 that its value in 1961 terms was equally derisory.²⁸ In any case, Italian was, of course, the official language; German was only "parified" to it, and after the war Italians were reluctant to take up the culture of a country associated with the sinister events of the second World War. Finally, with respect to Italians in the state administration, there would equally be a reluctance to learn German if their posting in South Tyrol was not likely to be permanent but merely a tour of duty.

It was therefore a real shock for the Italian group to wake up in the Seventies and realise that if they wanted to participate in the life of the Province they would have to improve dramatically their knowledge of German life, language and culture. The reverse applied far less to South Tyrolese who, as Italian citizens, had to learn Italian in schools, traded with Italians, worked with them, and did Italian military service.

Finally, why did so few South Tyrolese actually take up employment after having been successful in the exam? Amongst the reasons put forward, one stressed that most of the posts were to be found in the capital of the Province, the town of Bolzano, where there was a chronic housing shortage, while a second pointed out that the actual recruitment mechanism was extremely slow: from the moment of application until taking up an appointment meant spending an average waiting period of well over a year, in which time the candidate might well obtain - and remain in - another job.²⁹

There were three results of this extraordinary situation First, in a period of high unemployment in Italy, vacancies existed in large numbers in certain public services but these could not be filled. Second, some administrations, especially the Postal Service and the Railways were on the verge of collapse because of the shortage of staff. Third, in a complete negation of the spirit of ethnic protection which the system of ethnic proportions was meant to instill, members of the Italian group, seeing that job prospects were far better amongst the German-speaking group, began sending their children to German-speaking schools and declaring themselves as "German".

Return to publication contents

Notes