PARLIAMENTARY PATH OF THE ADOPTION OF THE LAW FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE SLOVENE MINORITY IN ITALY

The article presents the parliamentary procedure of the law for the protection of the Slovene minority in Italy and shows the Italian attitude towards this process. By signing the London Memorandum Italy (1954) already submitted herself to respect the rights of Slovene minority. However, the provisions that were later confirmed by the treaties of Osimo (1975) were never put into practice and Slovene minority did not enjoy the rights granted by them. The only way out of this inconvenient state was the adoption of a law that would enact same principles of protection for the members of the minority on the whole area of its geographic distribution. Appropriate law was admitted by the Italian parliament only in 2001 (38/01). The conditions started getting better in the second half of the nineties when center-left government that was determined to solve the question of the historical linguistic minorities in Italy took power. Even though the deputies and the senators of the left and the center in majority supported the passing of the law for the protection of Slovene minority, the political right still insisted on preventing the parliamentary procedure by obstructing the discussions, adding numerous senseless amendments and stating that the protection of the Slovene minority would pose a threat to the Italian majority. Nevertheless, their hostile attitude towards the minority was defeated by the arguments of the center-left and the members of the German and the French minorities which ultimately led to the adoption of the mentioned law. Whereas local Italian press paid considerable attention to this process, the procedure seems to be virtually absent from the national newspapers. Author attributes that to the socio-political changes occurred after the breakup of Yugoslavia, namely the loss of strategic importance of the Italian eastern frontier.