President of Veneto joins campaign for Venetian independence from Italy

Luca Zaia pushes for official referendum for independence in region that polls suggest would secede from Rome if it had the chance

The most powerful politician in the north-eastern Veneto region of Italyhas thrown his weight behind a push for independence from the rest of the counry.

Luca Zaia, the president of the wealthy region that encompasses Venice, said there was “across-the-board” support among the five million people of Veneto to break away from Italy and proclaim an independent state.

Some recent polls have suggested that as many as 65 per cent of inhabitants support the campaign for independence.

Mr Zaia leads a regional assembly which is debating holding an official referendum on the issue, just as Scotland secured the right to hold September’s vote on seceding from Britain.

An unofficial, online referendum is being held by an independence movement this week, with the results due to be announced on Friday, but it is not recognised by Rome. So far 750,000 people have voted, organisers say.

“We’re watching with great interest what is happening in Scotland and also in Catalonia,” Mr Zaia, who served as a minister under Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, told foreign journalists in Rome.

“The Catalans have the same problem with Madrid that we have with Rome. We are treated as if we are on the far-flung frontiers of the Roman empire.”

There are powerful economic and cultural reasons for Veneto to strive for independence.

“Seven out of 10 people in Veneto speak the Venetian dialect at home and think in Venetian,” he said. “They still speak the language of the Venetian Republic, which existed for a thousand years.”

Venetians and the people of surrounding cities such as Padova and Vicenza deeply resent the fact that each year Rome takes 20 billion euros of their tax revenue.

They feel that the money is squandered on corrupt and dysfunctional parts of Italy, particularly in the crime-ridden south.

“Sicily employs 22,000 forestry officers while we, who have the Dolomites within our territory, have just 400,” Mr Zaia said.

He insisted that the region, which has a border with Austria, is strong enough economically to forge ahead as an independent state.

Most of the region’s 600,000 businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises which are commercially nimble and highly adaptable but are being crushed by oppressive rates of tax, he said.

“They can switch markets and products very quickly. Rome just holds us back,” he said.

While business taxes are as high as 68 per cent in Italy, the European average is 45 per cent and in the neighbouring Austrian region of Carinthia, just 25 per cent.

Mr Zaia, who was elected president of Veneto in 2010, acknowledged that the Italian constitution does not permit regions to secede, but said that campaigners would pursue independence based on the right to self-determination.

But the struggle will take years, he conceded. “We’re in Italy. It’s not going to happen tomorrow.”