29 Aug Can an Italian Village (Pop. 598) Achieve Statehood? Why Not?
The NYT reports on an interesting strategy by an Italian village to avoid political oblivion. Statehood and independence!
The mayor of Filettino has loftier aspirations: he wants his town in the hills east of Rome — population 598 — to become an independentstate under a monarch.
“If that’s what it takes to keep the town autonomous and protect its natural resources,” said the mayor, Luca Sellari, who was elected in May. Besides, he added, “it’s everyone’s dream to be a prince.”
As befits a monarch, Mr. Sellari has lost little time in pursuing his dream. The would-be principality already has a coat of arms that now graces everything from T-shirts (“going like hotcakes,” Mr. Sellari said) to a liqueur, the Amaro of the Principality, which a local bartender, Maria Cerrocchi, said was just a brand-name bottle “with a photocopied label stuck on it.”
Filettino has even printed its own currency, the fiorito, which means “flowered” (“like the town will flower in its new guise,” the mayor explained) and which harks back to the florin, the money first coined in 13th-century Florence. If fioritos become legal tender (so far they are just souvenirs), the exchange rate is supposed to be set at two to the euro, or about 72 cents apiece
How cool is that! And after the recognition of Kosovo and (soon) Palestine, the bar for statehood is definitely not what it used to be. So why not?!?
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How can Kosovo and especially Palestine compare to some small village with the population of 598 in the middle of Rome? That’s not even funny.
Julian,
The bar for statehood has been low for some time. Most of the newly independent countries of Africa were immediately recognized as states and admitted to the UN during decolonization irrespective of whether they possessed governments capable of controlling their territories. Are Kosovo and Palestine less like states today than the DRC was in 1960?
There’s a number of microcountries in Europe, several of them already within Italy.
I imagine if the Italian government really cares about the issue some soldiers will show up and remind everyone they are Italian citizens.
Having a country that tiny is only really possible if none of your surrounding countries have any objections, since you can’t practically field a military.