After all, South Tyrol is part of Austria. Just look at the many South Tyroleans who send their children to study in Vienna, Innsbruck or Graz. You also look at the Austrians, they love it so much Kastelruther Spatzen Listen.
Politically, too, people are getting closer and closer to the electoral democracy of Austria. South Tyrol finally has its own wiretapping scandal, except that this is not about videos that were recorded at a fun Red Bull party on a Balearic island. Instead of a beautiful oligarch’s niece, a not-so-beautiful bus operator plays the main role, instead of text messages, phone calls reached the public. But there is no lack of “you’ll get everything you want anyway” here either. At most caviar, gummy bears and canned beer as in HC Strache’s shopping lists.
For decades, the South Tyrolean People’s Party, sister party of the ÖVP and spearhead of the German-speaking community, basked in their election results against “those in Rome”. The cooperation between politics, business and the regional media powerhouse Athesia (Lokalblatt Dolomites) ran like clockwork. Anyone who didn’t mess it up with the former SVP governor Luis Durnwalder had nothing to fear. Until 2014 the generation change was heralded. Well, there would have been one or the other aspiring young SVPer by Durnwalder’s grace who would have continued this style. One of the rhetorically gifted university dropouts who made it to the Chancellery in Vienna in a slim-fit suit.
Just a few items for Durnwalder’s favorites
But in South Tyrol it was the irreproachable local politician Arno Kompatscher who, as the new governor, declared war on the felt – and who is therefore hated by the felt to this day. In order not to upset the old conservatives completely, Kompatscher also distributed posts to young Durnwalder favorites, but things did not calm down. When train and bus routes were to be reassigned, a powerful businessman was worried about his living expenses and emails were leaked, the Bolzano public prosecutor’s office got involved, who didn’t wire any holiday homes, but listened to a few phone calls. There it was then heard from the South Tyrolean Provincial Councilor Thomas Widmann that he would “hop” (saw off) Kompatscher, while someone else said that the Italian right-wing radicals against “Arno” should be brought on board. The Athesia reported little, others a lot. So everyone was just waiting for a whistleblower to be arrested for drug trafficking, as in Austria.
And so these days one has the impression that Bozen and Vienna are as close as Schnalstal and Ötztal. Will Sebastian Kurz soon bring Kompatscher’s adversary to Silicon Valley? Will the current governor flee over the Similaun glacier? Will a Russian oligarch soon get into South Tyrolean public transport or will Luis Durnwalder and Silvio Berlusconi take over the Athesia? It’s all a single red-white-red waltz on the beautiful blue Adige.
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