Eventually, the pressure of terrorism caused Italian central government to consider “Second statutory order” especially for the mostly German speaking province of Bozen/Bolzano (South Tyrol).

Today

Today, South Tyrol enjoys a high degree of autonomy, and relations with North and East Tyrol—the two portions of the old state retained by Austria—are lively, especially since Austria joined the European Union. The South Tyrolean People’s Party, or Südtiroler Volkspartei, has been consistently in power since its founding in 1945.

However, South Tyrolean society is still to some extent segmented across ethnic lines: each resident must declare his or her ethnic group at the census (choosing amongst Italian, German or Ladin). According to the 2001 census more than two-thirds of the population is German speaking (68%); the second most used language is Italian (28%), followed by Ladin (4%). Places today have two (German/Italian) or even three (Ladin/German/Italian) names.