Ethnic proportional representation (South Tyrol)
The ethnic Proporz ( Italian proporzionale etnica ) is a legal regulation based on the Statute of Autonomy , which is used in South Tyrol for the allocation of jobs in the public service, the distribution of public social benefits and the budget of the state administration. The ethnic proportionality guarantees a proportional consideration of the three legally recognized language groups ( German , Italian , Ladin ) according to the strength of the population censuses. These censuses are conducted at ten-year intervals. A personal declaration of language group membership or language group assignment declaration is required by law for an application for an employment relationship in the public service or for the use of certain social benefits. Ethnic proportional representation was first used with the conclusion of the official census of 1981. In 2011 69.41% of South Tyroleans declared themselves to be part of the German language group, 26.06% to the Italian language group and 4.53% to the Ladin language group.
prehistory
The annexation of the southern part of the former Austro-Hungarian Crown Land of Tyrol by the Kingdom of Italy in 1919 led in the 1920s and 1930s to a large-scale exchange of the old Austrian (mostly German-speaking) civil servants in the newly formed South Tyrol , which was consistently carried out by Italian staff from other regions of the country was replaced. This Italianization policy , which was particularly promoted by Italian fascism , remained in effect until after the end of the Second World War. The Gruber-De-Gasperi Agreement between Italy and Austria of 1946 guaranteed the equal treatment of German-speaking South Tyroleans, but in fact until 1972 over 90% of civil servant posts in state offices in South Tyrol were held by Italian-speaking staff (6469 of 7131 posts). A similar distribution was found in the area of social housing, where in 1984 (after the introduction of ethnic proportionality) 68.4% of the 12,024 social housing were still inhabited by members of the numerically smaller (but less privately financed) Italian language group.
Second Statute of Autonomy 1972 and its implementation
The " Second Statute of Autonomy " of 1972, which significantly strengthened the legal and financial scope of the Province of Bolzano (South Tyrol) in general, has since provided that the public administration's staffing plans are reserved for the "citizens of each of the three language groups ] in relation to the strength of the language groups, as can be seen from the declaration of affiliation given in the official census ”(Art. 89 Para. 3). The statutory implementation regulation on proportional representation (DPR No. 752/1976) from 1976 also provides for a privilege for candidates who have been resident in South Tyrol for at least two years. The first census, which was accompanied by the collection of the declaration of affiliation required for proportional representation, dates back to 1981. Since then, the state-wide censuses of 1991, 2001 and 2011 have followed.
Language group declaration or language group assignment declaration
On the occasion of the census, all citizens living in South Tyrol who have reached the age of 14 ( previously 18) and are not incapacitated due to mental illness must submit a personal statement with which they are
- the affiliation or
- Assignment to one of the three language groups
(Decree of the President of the Republic No. 752/1976, as amended by Legislative Decree No. 99/2005).
The mode of assignment to a language group, approved for the first time in 1991 , was intended for those groups of people who do not want to commit to any of the three recognized language groups. Its introduction was necessary in order to prevent conflicting norms with the principle of the free movement of services in the EU internal market . At the same time, it takes account of the necessary integration of migrants from non-European countries and opens up a linguistically weakened version of the explanation to South Tyroleans who feel they belong to several linguistic milieus. In legal terms, the assignment of affiliation is factually equivalent.
A declaration of membership of a language group or a declaration of language group assignment is valid for ten years (until the next census). Since 2005 it has been possible to change the personal declaration of affiliation or assignment at short notice by means of a so-called ad hoc declaration . In order to prevent misuse, the change will only come into effect two years after the declaration of change has been submitted. The introduction of the ad hoc declaration is also seen as the reason that in 2011 led to the absence of social tensions between the language groups for the first time in the run-up to the periodic censuses.
| language | 1981 | 1991 | 2001 | 2011 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| German | 66.40 | 67.99 | 69.15 | 69.41 |
| Italian | 29.38 | 27.65 | 26.47 | 26.06 |
| Ladin | 4.21 | 4.36 | 4.37 | 4.53 |
Special regulations for the allocation of public jobs
The proportional representation applies in general to all employees of public corporations in South Tyrol, i.e. all municipalities , district communities and the South Tyrolean provincial administration, but also to employees of the Trentino-South Tyrol region and the Italian state who have their workplace in South Tyrol. Ethnic proportional representation is also still used for former state-owned companies that have been privatized. For example in the post office and the railroad .
Special regulations apply in special professional fields. In the area of jurisdiction, the Administrative Court (TAR) is exempt from the proportional representation rule in that it is occupied equally (50/50) by representatives of the German and Italian language groups. In order to prevent important jobs (e.g. in the health sector) from not being filled, job contingents for the language groups can be charged across industries.
The approximately 4,000 civil servant positions of the Ministry of Interior and Defense in South Tyrol, which include the government commissioner, the police headquarters (bailiff) and other police and military institutions, are completely excluded from ethnic proportional representation .
Ethnic proportional representation in politics
Political offices in the executive bodies of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol and the Autonomous Region of Trentino-South Tyrol must be assigned according to proportional distribution keys according to the autonomy statute. The composition of the South Tyrolean provincial government and regional government Trentino-Alto Adige with members of the different language groups does not depend on the censuses, but on the language group declarations or language group assignment declarations of the members of the parliament elected in the respective legislative period. For example, if 70% of all South Tyrolean members of the state parliament in a legislative period are German-speaking, then 70% of the members of the state government must also be German-speaking.
This distribution key originally applied to the German, Italian and Ladin language groups. Since the Ladin language group only has a relatively low voter potential, it usually did not have the necessary number of MPs to be able to claim representation in the state and regional government. This changed with the entry into force of Constitutional Law No. 2/2001, which made it possible for the Ladins to be represented in the state government in a way that deviated from their proportional strength and made it mandatory in the regional government.
criticism
The ethnic proportional representation is primarily criticized by the Italian-speaking side, as a large part of the jobs in the public service had been occupied by Italian-speaking South Tyroleans until the introduction of the proportional representation system. The regulation of ethnic proportionality suddenly deprived the largely urban, Italian-speaking population of South Tyrol from a considerable part of their original employment opportunities, while ethnic proportional representation opened up additional employment opportunities for the German-speaking population rooted in agriculture, trade and tourism.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the representatives of the New Left / Nuova Sinistra , in particular their top exponent Alexander Langer, formulated criticism from the German-speaking side . The New Left warned of an increase in social tensions between the language groups, which were actually triggered by the economic effects of ethnic proportionality and which could be clearly seen in the electoral successes of the Italian neo-fascists ( Movimento Sociale Italiano ) from 1985 onwards. Alexander Langer opposed the politics of ethnic proportionality with an interethnic concept that was supposed to form the basis for peaceful coexistence between the various language groups in South Tyrol and, in contrast to the separating proportionality, brought the principle of multilingualism ( e.g. in bilingual families) to the fore.
With the increasing practice of ethnic proportionality, the accompanying tendency towards negative selection of public personnel was also criticized. Due to the fact that applicants are primarily selected according to ethnic criteria (German, Italian, Ladin) and only then according to technical quality criteria, some jobs (e.g. in the health sector) could not always be filled with the best qualified applicant. In extreme cases, jobs that were urgently to be filled (e.g. specialist positions) even had to remain vacant despite relevant applicants. After several years, this experience has finally led to a partial softening of the ethnic proportionality in selected professions.
literature
- Hermann Atz: Against each other, side by side or with each other: How have 40 years of the Statute of Autonomy affected the coexistence of the language groups in South Tyrol? In: Günther Pallaver (Ed.): Politika 12th year book for politics / Annuario di politica / Anuer de pulitica. Edition Raetia, Bozen 2012, pp. 241–268.
- Oskar Peterlini : The ethnic proportionality in South Tyrol. Athesia, Bozen 1980.
- Giovanni Poggeschi: The ethnic proportionality. In: Joseph Marko (ed.): The constitution of the South Tyrolean autonomy. The special legal system of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano / South Tyrol. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2005, pp. 322–331.
Web links
- The Statute of Autonomy in the South Tyrolean Citizens' Network
- 2001 census (PDF file; 914 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Summer press release from LH Durnwalder (5): “Ehrliche Sprachgruppeerammlung”. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 9, 2011 ; accessed on March 21, 2015 .
- ↑ Demographic data for South Tyrol 2018. State Institute for Statistics (Astat), accessed on November 27, 2019 (PDF file).
- ↑ Oskar Peterlini : Funzionamento dei sistemi e elettorali minoranze linguistiche . FrancoAngeli, Milan 2012, ISBN 978-88-568-4455-9 , p. 106.
- ↑ ASTAT - The Public Employees in South Tyrol - 2000–2004.