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Time in Yerevan: 11:07,   29 March 2024

Veneto region launches five-day referendum on secession from Italy

Veneto region launches five-day referendum on secession from Italy

Voting began on Sunday in the northern Italian region of Veneto, the former Republic of Venice, on whether it should secede from the rest of Italy. The main question is "Do you support the creation of an independent, sovereign and federative Republic of Venice?" But voters will also have to express their views about whether the Republic of Venice should remain part of the European Union and NATO. Voting will continue for five days, from March 16 through 21.

The law on Veneto's independence referendum was passed in 2006. Opinion polls indicate that around 65% of the population of Veneto, support independence. The region includes historic cities such as Venice, Padua, Treviso, Vicenza and Verona, all of them popular tourist attractions. The region has 3.8 million eligible voters. A massive turnout is expected. Although the outcome of the referendum is not binding, the "yes" vote could enable the region to take steps to withhold taxes from Rome and draw up a declaration of independence. "If there is a majority yes vote, we have scholars drawing up a declaration of independence and there are businesses in the region who say they will begin paying taxes to local authorities instead of to Rome," Lodovico Pizzati, the spokesman for Veneto's independence movement, told reporters.

Pro-independence campaigners are inspired by the examples of Scotland in Britain and Catalonia in Spain. The Republic of Venice, a Mediterranean superpower with a more than a millennium-old independent history, was conquered by Napoleon in 1797 and later became part of the Austrian Empire. It remained under Austrian control until 1866 when it was ceded to the Kingdom of Italy in exchange for its assistance to Austria in the Austrian-Prussian war.








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