Exiled Tibetan Prime Minister Dr. Lobsang Sangay held a joint conference with President of South Tyrol, an autonomous province of Italy, Dr. Arno Kompatscher on the occasion of 58th Tibetan National Uprising Day on Thursday.
President Kompatscher was accompanied by a delegation team including, Domink Holzer, Chief of the Cabinet of the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, Dr. Elisabeth spergser, Head of the Office of Cabinet Affairs, responsible for funding all development projects, Dr. Gunther Cologna, head of Education and Training at European Academy Bolzano (EURAC Research), Prof. Roland Psenner, President of EURAC Research, Dr. Stephan Ortner, Director of EURAC Research and Dr. Hermann Brugger, Head of the EURAC Institute of Mountain Emergency Medicine
Addressing the media, the exiled Prime Minister Sangay said, "South Tyrol and central Tibetan administration have a very close relationship in fact a long-term relationship. It goes back to twenty years where there were discussions about middle way approach based genuine autonomy."
"So, we wanted to study how autonomous regions are actually practicing and how autonomy is actually implemented in various places around the world," Sangay added.
On his part, the President of South Tyrol said, "We are here not to give any advice to anybody because we cannot and I won't do it. We just only can tell you what's our story. How the things where in Italy in South Tyrol once and how they are now and may our situation could be one example not a model because things are always different but its one example that how the things could go in a positive way."
Kompatscher said that South Tyrol was a part of Austria until the World War I and most of the people were German speaking. But after WWI this region came to Italy.
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He added, "Now, we have our own parliament we make our own laws. We have to observe the Italian constitution. We have our own school, we have teaching in our languages and we have our own income by the taxes which people pay... Maybe, we are one of the most convincing examples how genius autonomy can preserve culture, tradition and at the same time we live peacefully together."
"This autonomy is not autonomy only for German speaking or Latin speaking people, but, even for the Italian-speaking people of the region now are happy with it.. We have an Italian teaching school, German, Latin. We have a multicultural situation and we consider us 'rich' for that. This is the middle-way approach just in reality that we have it. So, I think it should be like this for Tibet and I hope it will be." said Kompatscher.