Rome protests AfD poster depicting South Tyrol as independent state

A diplomatic crisis has broken out with the Italian government after Alternative for Germany (AfD) organised a gathering for the German-speaking community in South Tyrol, an autonomous province belonging to Italy.

A group of AfD lawmakers held a meeting in Berlin last Wednesday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the signing of an agreement guaranteeing the rights of the German-speaking population residing in the region, which is known in German as “Südtirol”.

The diplomatic rift with Rome emerged after promotional posters depicted this Italian province as an independent state.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced that he would seek a formal explanation from the Bundestag, noting that the gathering took place inside the federal parliament building.

In an interview with the newspaper Corriere della Sera, Tajani criticised the Bundestag event by arguing that the 1946 agreements had “nothing to do” with Germany. He accused the AfD of being an “anti-Italian” party, adding:

“The poster is very clear: there is a map where South Tyrol is shown as a separate, independent state. In other words, the AfD supports and encourages South Tyrol’s secession from Italy. This is a very serious matter.”

Representatives of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy (FdI), echoed his remarks.

The European Parliament delegation of Tajani’s own party, Forza Italia (FI), also announced that it would file an official complaint with the European Commission.

In a press release, FI Members of the European Parliament said: “South Tyrol is an integral part of the Italian Republic, and its territorial status is not open to debate.” They also described recent statements on the issue by certain AfD figures as “serious” and “unacceptable”.

These statements referred to Jean-Pascal Hohm, the head of the AfD’s youth wing, who attended a gathering held in South Tyrol by the separatist group Süd-Tiroler Freiheit (STF).

Speeches delivered during that event questioned the region’s Italian identity and praised as “freedom fighters” members of the STF who were responsible for roughly 350 attacks in the 1950s and 1960s.

During the event, Hohm stated: “Your struggle is a touchstone for identity struggles and self-determination.” Like the AfD, the STF is “anti-European” and advocates for “remigration”.

Indeed, the chairwoman of the STF’s youth wing, Melanie Mair, also attended an AfD youth congress led by Hohm. Founded in 2008, the STF secured 10.9% of the vote in the most recent provincial elections held in 2023.

Opinion polls indicate that the STF holds a 14% share of voting intentions, a figure that would make it the second-largest political force in the region after the moderate regionalist South Tyrolean People’s Party (SVP), led by provincial governor Arno Kompatscher.

According to Kompatscher, the AfD’s interference in South Tyrol’s politics recalls a “very dark period when the National Socialists and the Fascists, Hitler and Mussolini, reached an agreement on the future” of the territory.

On the other hand, AfD Member of the European Parliament Marc Jongen dismissed as “nonsense” the claims that his party wanted Germany to annex South Tyrol, stressing that the province historically belonged to Austria rather than Germany.

Jongen delivered these remarks at an event hosted by National Future, Italy’s new right-wing party founded by retired general Roberto Vannacci, which sits as an ally of the AfD in the European Parliament.

South Tyrol, also known as Alto Adige, is situated in northeastern Italy at the foothills of the Alps.

Having come under Rome’s control in 1920 following the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the First World War, the territory was subjected to forced Italianisation during the fascist era.

Following decades of protests demanding reunification with Vienna, the region’s approximately 540,000 residents, 69% of whom speak German as their mother tongue, now enjoy wide-ranging autonomy.