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that date, also, 14,000 civil servants were transferred from national-level to regional assignments. A year later some of the legal transfer of power was still in process, and Rome still refused to transfer some powers (For example, the regions are trying to protect the environment and to improve land use, but the national government has kept control of many aspects of those subjects.)

Potentially the most explosive region has been the German-speaking area on the southern slopes below the Brenner Pass, the South Tyrone, which Italy acquired from Austria after World War I and named the Alto Adige. After World War II it was promised autonomy, and Rome kept that promise—but merged the German-speaking area with the predominantly Italian province of Trento to form an Italian-dominated "autonomous region" called Trentino-Alto Adige. The German-speaking people number about 200,000, and their predicament evokes much sympathy across the border in Austria. Anti-Italian terrorist activities have been serious in the region, but have diminished since the December 1969 agreement between Austria and Italy, which provided that Rome would give progressively more autonomy to the German-speaking part of the region and that the German language would have equal status with Italian in the public media and schools of the whole region.

The regional governments have still to prove themselves. Their proponents have long held that, being on the scene, they would appreciate local needs more acutely and respond more quickly. If effective, regional governments could indeed do much to dispel the indifference, frustration, and resentment that Italians generally feel towards government. People might then see their votes as a genuine way of communication and action. But if the regular political parties view them as another source of patronage rather than as a field of endeavor, they will increase the average Italian's alienation from his government—and they may also increase his interest in the Communists. Already the Communists dominate the governments of the three "Red Belt" regions (Emilia-Romagna, Tuscana, and Umbria), and they seem determined to be responsible and effective. To the surprise of many observers, their constitutions did not differ greatly from those submitted by other regions, and early reports indicate that the Communists are using their best administrative talent. On the other hand, Sicily has had regional status for a quarter century, and its government is a thorough tangle of corruption, involving Christian Democrats, Communists, and Mafia alike.

Rome regards the regional governments with deep suspicion, and the regions consider their budgets (allocated from Rome) to be inadequate. By mid-1973 the major regional activity had been the preparation of massive studies on regional problems and on regional aspects of national problems. In 1972 for the first time the Prime Minister started the practice of meeting with the regional presidents each month to discuss regional matters. There had been no official channel between the presidents and Rome before, and dialogue has been extremely important. Time will tell whether the sins of the central bureaucracy will be duplicated in every regional capital.

It's Different in the South (c)

The poverty of southern Italy has been the most conspicuous national problem ever since the country became a nation. Even a casual observer is struck by the difference between the green north and the tawny south and between the bustling, building, noisy industrial cities of the north and the south's picturesque rustic poverty. The problem area is called the Mezzogiorno, the land of the midday sun, it includes the foot of the boot almost up to Rome and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia—which, though different in history and culture from the southern part of the peninsula, have shared its destitution.

The difference starts with the climate. The north is almost a part of Central Europe, with cold wet winters

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