Italy referendums: Lombardy and Veneto 'back greater autonomy'
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
1) The referendum in Veneto was supported by the Venetian section of all major parties, across all the political spectrum.
2) In Italy five regions have a far greater degree of autonomy for historical reasons. Many Comuni (city councils) voted to leave Veneto to join nearby Trentino Alto-Adige just for this far greater autonomy. The proponents of the referendum would like to see more federalism in Italy, e.g. following the German model.
3) Italy is very divided from an economical point of view. Veneto and Lombardy may be easily compared to the richest German industrial districts, whereas the South's economy is not so different from Greece. Taxation in Italy is very high, and a lot of money gets redistributed from the rich North to the poorer South. To make a long story short each citizen from Veneto gives about 5000€ per year to each citizen in the South. Edit: see noisymemories's comment below, often the money is lost in a maze of entities and inefficiency.
I perfectly acknowledge a country should redistribute wealth, but many perceive that this redistribution is too high and unfair, and call for a less centralized Italy.
4) Italy is a young country, with 150 years of history, whereas Veneto has millenium-long story as the Serenissima Republic. The Venetian language is widespread alongside Italian, and many (again, across all political spectrum) have stronger ties to the Venetian heritage rather than to the Italian heritage.
In exchange, I have just one request - please ask your local MPs to stop saving the ass of our corrupted politicians who foster such behavior, instead of giving them parliamentary immunity or "institutional benefit of doubt" every time some anti-corruption or anti-mafia investigation gets them. It would be a nice start.
It really sickens me to see people supporting segregation, separation and justify their ignorance with some historical fact that has no ties to the present.
For what I personally care, Veneto and Lombardia could become their own countries, but let's just call things with their names instead of finding silly justifications.
When people are unhappy with the present (for any possible reason, like being "just average", which is not necessarily a bad thing, among one of them), they look back to the past, to some "glorious times".
However, they only look at the most successful moment[s], they never wonder how things built up, how they got lost, etc. It's much easier, because this way you can blame it on someone else, instead of rolling up your sleeves and work to create a (more) decent environment.
I am happy with my present, however I am surrounded by Venetian culture, everywhere around me, from my native Venetian language, to monuments in my city, from food and traditions to street names in the Venetian language.
Everywhere around me speaks of my Venetian heritage.
Venetian are hard-working people, after WW2 Veneto went from an underdeveloped, rural region to one of the richest regions in Italy, whose per-capita GDP compares with that of the richest German industrial districts.
Still, people always felt deeply bound to their Serenissima roots. It’s not a matter of unhappiness or hard times, it’s a matter of a millennial history that pervades the whole region and cannot be denied.
(More remarks here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15531255 - disclaimer, I chose not to vote)
However, given that five Regions essentially don't engage in such redistribution due to their special status, and given that it is a widespread opinion that this special status is just for historical reasons -- making very little sense today -- I think that a constitutional reform may be on the table soon.
The Veneto referendum is a good demonstration that these issues have widespread support from all the political spectrum.
The referendum might have had widespread _local_ support, but at the country level it's a whole different story. Why didn't Veneto get more autonomy (same as what they want to ask now) when the Lega Nord was part of the national government coalition?
It probably is, at first. But in an economy of different parties, who produces more needs some buyers to keep growing. If there are not enough buyers, overproduction and economical collapse will knock at the door. You can see this trend internationally: we seldom see a country be an outlier in the yearly growth. Either all countries grow, or all countries decline. It is the % that changes. We saw this during the 2008-2012 crisis in particular.
It is in the interest of the richest areas to help the poorest. By doing so not only the average quality of life of a country increases. With less economical inequalities between regions, the once poorer regions are buyers of goods of the once richer ones.
While you correctly associated Lombardia and Veneto to Germany, you forgot to mention that after the WWII, Germany went split politically and economically. When it got re-united in 1989-1991 East Germany was economically very diverse from the more developed West. Our fathers were wiser: instead of doing referendum demanding taxes to be withheld in the West, they demanded to be taxed to help the East. [source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reunification#Cost_of_r... ] After 20 years those differences are still somewhat visible, yet they do not constitute a problem for Germany's growth and quality of life as a nation.
On the historical side it has been confirmed that 2/3 of the gold resources in Italy came from Regno delle due Sicilie [source: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regno_delle_Due_Sicilie in Patrimonio e finanza section ]. Those lands are today's most rural parts of Italy, yet contributed the most to the wealth of Italy as a nation.
I highly suggest a read on this last historical matter: Terroni by Pino Aprile. You might find a different point of view. [ https://www.amazon.com/Terroni-Ensure-Italians-Became-Southe... ]
Yes, however one still needs to decide to which extent. Italy helps the poorest areas much more than Germany or the US do. Would a federal model like Germany work better?
That's why I said that redistribution is OK in principle, but many feel that in Italy there's just too much of it.
> On the historical side it has been confirmed that 2/3 of the gold resources in Italy came from Regno delle due Sicilie
Many wrongs were commited in that age, many of which targeted the North, as well.
However, if you sum all the subsidies the South has been granted through the years (one among many: Cassa per il Mezzogiorno) that would easily offset those gold resources.
Edit: actually is more, Cassa per il Mezzogiorno was given about 140 billions, while 2/3 of Italy's gold resources are worth about 100 billions. One should also keep in mind that Cassa per il Mezzogiorno was active only between 1950 and 1984, and many other subsidies for the South were present before, during and after.
While the amount is huge, that is not event the biggest issue. What people resent is _how_ that money is spent: public construction project meant mostly to funnel money to organized crime and companies of relatives of politicians; covering the bizarre expenses of the politicians; and the never ending legion of public employees that got a job in exchange of votes (but get paid without working much or at all). If you add the fact that southern Italy is where most of tax evasion and health-related fraud occurs, the feeling for many is not that they are paying to help the poorer, but that they are sweating so that others can live a comfortable life.
While it is not a black-white situation (there are also such issues in the North, and hard working people in the South), the difference is notable.
While it’s possible that there’s some of that attitude in Catalonia, I’d point out that the other large, recent European independence movement in Scotland was emphatically not that. Brexit, comparable on some levels, is also different.
In reality, the reasons for independence/sescession movements gaining strength is complex and varies from place to place. That description seems a little reductive.
Catalonia is literally the same, with just more political madness to it.
The reason behind all of this is that we are living in a harsh economic era, politics failed in providing a guidance and unity (since a while) and people don't feel empathy towards other side of their countries and blame them for their country defects, as if you could just point the finger to a specific region or group of people to blame them for the economic tragedies and corruption of modern politics.
This seems to be the common denominator a lot of the independence movements in Europe and, possibly, elsewhere. The desire to keep the profits in urbanized centers while still being able to sell their stuff, without tariffs, elsewhere.
Let’s never forget the horrors of a disassembled Europe, filled with nationalists and xenofobes.
We had the former with asian and hellenistic kingdoms, Rome, etc, all the way to the 19th century.
>Let’s never forget the horrors of a disassembled Europe, filled with nationalists and xenofobes
You might only remember WWI and WWII, but Europe was shedding blood in wars for near 1000 years, for the most part because of a lack of nation states -- kingdoms, empires and feudal overlords fought for control, while masses fought to secede and establish free of control nation states that they could govern according to their preferences. That's how the modern democracies were established.
As for WWI and WWII, those were the remnants of fighting for control over the world from imperialist empires -- the opposite of humble nation states.
Britain, France, and co were colonial powers, whereas Germany and Italy were feeling left out. Those were the last bursts of those old "empires". When the colonies mostly died and the US took over uncontested primacy over global affairs from old Europe, the tensions in Europe died with the lowered stakes (and of course were revived by the US and USSR in the Cold War and tons of peripheral wars).
The idea of Europe as collection of semi-autonomic historical regions is complete opposite of nationalism.
Isn't it funny how for some people "everybody I don't like is a Nazi"?
Isn't it funny how "progressives" accept backwards practices and religious crap in name of "diversity"?
Then they are "surprised" when Brexit happens, or when there is a rise in antisemitism in certain places or when women's right are curtailed. Gee I wonder why...
In other words:
- There was rarely a democratic vote on "let's just kill X" with X being a religious, ethnic or whatever group.
- There was rarely a small state committing horrible crimes of epic proportions. Partly because they don't have the means, partly because it's easier to flee small states, partly due to other reasons.
And if you think democratic small states won’t try to eliminate socially undesirable citizens, look at the history of eugenics in Switzerland.
I don’t think you are necessarily wrong, but there are definitely counter examples.
Quite the opposite, let's never forget the horrors of attempted unification of desperate nationalities of Europe under large reichs, socialist utopias, or just the good 'ol imperial expansion.
> It’s just funny how the modern nationalist and xenofobe believe they’re “super cool and progressive”.
Something tells me people voting for these issues, didn't really care about being looking "super cool" but had other, slightly more nuanced concerns.
Also, if the goal is to convince any of them to abandon their positions, mocking them and calling them "xenophobes" will have the exact opposite effect.
You are absolutely wrong. The referendum was supported by the Venetian sections of all major parties, including PD (Partito Democratico, Italian main centre-left party).
In Italy five regions have a far greater autonomy, for historical reasons. The proponents of the referendum would want something similar for Lombardy and Veneto, and in principle for all regions.
And yet, that's exactly how it works in tons of places. Germany, Switzerland, heck, the US...
(Also: forever is a long time. Nothing lasts forever. In 100 years the landscape can be totally different).
In Lombardy it's about a list of 23 special topics, which the Constitution says are legislated by both State and regions. The Constitution also says that regions can agree with the central government on getting exclusive legislation on some or all of these topics. There was no need even to have a referendum to start the process. And there is no money on the table, but the president of the region kept mentioning "30 billion euros" which reminds me of the NHS and the British referendum. Not coincidentally, the president is running for reelection in 6 months.
In Veneto the question was simply "would you like more autonomy" without saying what and how. After voting, the president said it's about the 23 topics plus keeping tax money in Veneto. The latter however would require amending the Constitution, which in turn requires either a 2/3 supermajority in both houses, or a simple majority plus a referendum across all of Italy. It's just not going to happen. Constitutional changes have happened in the past, through either a supermajority or a referendum, but this one has no choice of passing. Regardless, a referendum was unnecessary there too.
Both referendums were a huge waste of money, basically amounting to campaigning with public money. They were a farce just like the one in Catalunya, but they were both completely legal and independence from Italy is not on the table anywhere, with the exception of a few nutjobs (equally subdivided among both rich and poor regions).
Addendum: Lombardy played with electronic voting; votes from the opposition were needed to do the referendum, because according to the regional statute referendums need a supermajority, and one opposition party agreed to vote on the condition that voting would be electronic. The president kept boasting about how we would have known the results five minutes after closing the ballot (it takes about three hours to do manual counting), yet 10 hours after we do not even know precisely how many people have voted.
hehe - and that's why this piece of news is on hacker news.