Delegate: Italy

Forum: General Assembly

Issue: Rights of religious and cultural minorities

Italy took several decades to build up a united nation because of the previous political fragmentation.
After a long process of unification, today the widely accepted representation is that of a relatively
homogeneous ethnic, linguistic and religious population, despite some regional socioeconomic
diversities, especially between the North and the South of Italy. The relations between the State and
minority groups deals with the work of Constituent Assembly wich was created when Italy became a
democratic republic, in 1946. It formulated several principles to establish the equality of citizens and
to protect minority rights. Despite the formal recognition of minorites’ rights, the Constitution’s
articles were not applied immediately, and it was only later that some laws and agreements were
formulated to implement the Constitution’s articles regarding minority rights. We are referring
specifically to two types of minorities: the linguistic ones and the religious ones.

Religious minorities are also protected by the Constitution’s articles. But the agreements with various
religions were signed only after the revision of the Lateran Treaty in the ‘80s, the treaty stipulated
between the State and the Catholic Church in 1929 to regularize their relations. Although in the last
20 years many agreements have been signed with various religious groups, the procedures for
signing them are very complex and long, and concrete enforcement does not always occur. It could
be said that there are two kinds of problems regarding the relations with other religions. Firstly,
Italian society has historically been shaped by Catholicism, and so awareness of religious differences
has remained low; consequently, non-Catholic religious organizations have difficulty obtaining
recognition from institutions and society. Secondly, it is always questionable where the balance lies
between the recognition of differences and guaranteeing equality of treatment. These problems
emerge particularly with Islam, which is perceived as very different from the Christian tradition. In
fact an agreement with Muslims has not been signed yet.