Excuse to discriminate Sicilian speakers?

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am a British citizen of Sicilian ancestry.

I have read with great personal happiness the recent news that school districts in England and Wales have started to include the Sicilian language and ethnicity in their enrolment forms.

The happiness was short lived, as after a day or two I read an article stating that "the Foreign Office in London has apologised" and that the forms "will be fixed":

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_news/2016/10/12/uk-apologises-for-school-forms-2_e3d72ec3-7346-4e8c-ac3b-cca7d9ad2fe9.html

Absolutely flabbergasted that the FCO would issues such an excuse, supinely accepting an imposition of a friendly but foreign country which will be felt as discriminatory by every speaker of the Sicilian language living in the UK, I have looked on the FCO website for the news item reporting such an action, but I could find none.

Could you please confirm that there was no excuse, and that the FCO will not impose the schools to "fix" the forms?

If indeed the FCO issued such an excuse, could you please refer me to the instructions on how to protest with the FCO for such a decision? Should I raise a FOI to understand how that was taken, and why the view of the Sicilian speakers living in the UK was not sought beforehand?

Kind regards,
Alessandro Riolo

PIL pro capite Regionale Italiano vs British Regional per capita GDP

Per capita GDP comparison among british and italian regions (the percent column uses as index the GDP of Lombardia).

Regioni britanniche ed italiane a confronto per PIL pro capite (la colonna percentuale usa come indice il PIL della Lombardia).

	Region | Regione	GDP|PIL	%
UK	Inner London	86,000	254%
UK	North Eastern Scotland	42,700	126%
UK	Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire	38,400	113%
IT	Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano/Bozen	37,700	111%
IT	Lombardia	33,900	100%
IT	Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste	33,700	99%
IT	Emilia-Romagna	32,100	95%
UK	Cheshire	31,700	94%
IT	Provincia Autonoma di Trento	31,200	92%
IT	Veneto	30,200	89%
IT	Lazio	29,900	88%
IT	Friuli-Venezia Giulia	29,600	87%
UK	Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath area	29,400	87%
UK	Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire	28,700	85%
UK	Surrey, East and West Sussex	28,700	85%
IT	Piemonte	28,200	83%
IT	Toscana	28,200	83%
UK	Hampshire and Isle of Wight	27,400	81%
IT	Liguria	27,200	80%
UK	Eastern Scotland	26,200	77%
IT	Marche	26,100	77%
UK	East Anglia	25,200	74%
UK	West Yorkshire	25,000	74%
UK	Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire	24,800	73%
UK	East Wales	24,500	72%
UK	Greater Manchester	24,200	71%
UK	Outer London	24,100	71%
UK	North Yorkshire	24,000	71%
UK	Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire	24,000	71%
UK	South Western Scotland	23,800	70%
IT	Umbria	23,700	70%
UK	West Midlands	23,300	69%
UK	Essex	23,000	68%
UK	Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire	22,700	67%
UK	Kent	22,700	67%
UK	Dorset and Somerset	22,500	66%
IT	Abruzzo	22,400	66%
UK	Cumbria	22,300	66%
UK	Northumberland and Tyne and Wear	22,200	65%
UK	Merseyside	21,600	64%
UK	Devon	21,600	64%
UK	East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire	21,500	63%
UK	Highlands and Islands	21,500	63%
UK	Lancashire	21,000	62%
UK	Northern Ireland	21,000	62%
UK	Shropshire and Staffordshire	20,700	61%
IT	Molise	20,100	59%
UK	South Yorkshire	20,000	59%
UK	Lincolnshire	19,800	58%
IT	Sardegna	19,700	58%
UK	Tees Valley and Durham	19,100	56%
IT	Basilicata	18,300	54%
UK	Cornwall and Isles of Scilly	17,300	51%
UK	West Wales and The Valleys	17,200	51%
IT	Puglia	17,100	50%
IT	Sicilia	16,600	49%
IT	Calabria	16,400	48%
IT	Campania	16,000	47%

Eurostat data 2011 | Dati Eurostat 2011

University qualifications: Italy vs UK

The following table describes the equivalence among the Italian and British university qualifications as understood by myself at this point in time:

Please note in Italian universities the unit of credit, the Credito Formativo Universitario (CFU) is equivalent to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) unit, while in British universities two Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS) units are equivalent to one ECTS.

This explains why we need 180 CFU to gain a Laurea, and why that should be equivalent to the 360 CATS required for a Bachelor's Degree with Honours.

Some caveat:

• In EU or EEA countries the only organizations who can officially confirm an academic equivalence is the local NARIC. 
• The Italian NARIC or the British NARIC could have different ideas on how the respective university qualifications compare one each other, they may actually even have different ideas or understanding, the table above is based on my own understanding of the respective legal and qualification frameworks.
• I am neither a solicitor, neither in any way related to any NARIC, so if you need an official statement, please go ask the specific NARIC, and if they don't agree with my understanding or with your expectations, tough luck.
• You could make a case for the Master Universitario di 2° livello to be equivalent to a short Professional Doctorate, which unfortunately doesn't exist in the British qualification framework.
• On the same note, I would probably equate a short (60 CFU) Diploma di Specializzazione di 2° livello to a Master of Philosophy with some study performed at level 8, or if the element of research was over 60 CFU, to a Research Master (MRes or MLitt), even though both these British qualifications are meant to be at level 7.

Malta, Italy and Libya, recent story of a complex relation

It is a weird, complex and twisted story, therefore sit down, and brace yourself for the bumpy ride.

Malta after its independence was not an economically viable country.

The stories of the first Maltese ferry-boats who took Maltese people in Catania, Sicily, in the early seventies, for short shopping trips, are the stuff of legend.
They were poorer than the Spaniards at the time, which was quite an achievement.

Their problem was that their biggest income was the rental they were getting from the UK for a big naval base. In 1971, the Maltese started to ask an higher rental, and when the British government refused, they openly started to circulate rumours of offering the base to the Soviet Union.

This precipitated a crisis inside the NATO, with USA and Italy completely berserk at the idea that the Soviet Union could get hold of the naval base in Malta, and they not only pressured the UK to quadruply the rental, but started to financially support Malta directly.

This didn't work, and at some point in the 70s the Maltese government started to accept payments from Libya to close the base. This happened in 1979. At some point in the late 70s the Libyans even got to run the airport of Malta.

At the point, the Italian governments had already decided that it was strategically a necessity to keep Soviet Union, Libya or any potentially enemy power from their immediate doorstep, and they had started a policy of increasing the support of Malta, whatever the cost.

This policy was finally crowned in 1982, which was frankly precipitated from the SAIPEM 2 affair (which is mostly known in Italy as the "affare Maltese").

When oil was found in the Medina banks, the Maltese government awarded an exploitation license to Texaco, which commissioned ENI to start to put an oil rig there, the SAIPEM 2, to start to extract oil on behalf of the Maltese government.

The Libyans didn't find it very amusing, and in 1980 they sent their navy, ordering the Italians to pack home, and the Maltese to stay away.

The Italian government then stepped in decisively, and in the "Accordo sul Riconoscimento e la Garanzia della Neutralità di Malta" recognized on itself the role of international guarantor of Malta, its independence and neutrality.

Malta at that point get rid of the Libyans, and the territorial dispute was sent to the International Court of Justice, which decided in 1985, mostly in Malta favour (which is the reason why Malta's S&R area is so big).

Italy, as you may know, is truly a politically complex country, therefore while part of the government was backing Malta, another part was more or less secretly helping Libya, and another part even tried to carve out a big chunk of the Medina banks for itself.
This is happening also now, the Italian politicians don't have a shared policy towards the Maltese approach to their S&R supposed responsibilities (and as someone may say, it is unrealistic to expect Malta to really swell its population welcoming tens of thousands of boat people every year).

As unbelievable as it can seems even to many Italians, the "Strage di Ustica" and even, in minor measure, the "Strage di Bologna", have both been linked with the SAIPEM 2 affair (they are basically contemporary events).

The infamous rockets were fired to Lampedusa for another immediate reason, the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986, but surely the Medina banks debacle at the ICJ was truly another good reason, from the point of view of the Libyans.

Anyway, with the Italian military guarantee and some financial support also from other NATO country, Libya kept at bay, and the revenues of the Medina banks, the Maltese started to reap the dividend of peace and neutrality, and they started (at last) to enrich (deservedly) themselves.

In my humble opinion, what they have achieved in the past 25 years, is even more remarkable of what places as Dubai have achieved in more or less the same time. Whatever they achieved, they did it under a democratically elected government, and with greater income equality (although until a few years ago they were still quite gender unbalanced, as women were gaining far less than men).

After entering in the EU, probably the Maltese don't need the Italian guaranty anymore, at last not anytime soon anyway, but as recently Italy and Libya have been moving closer and closer, probably from their point of view this relationship is becoming too dangerously close, and they may have started to itch the wrong way at the itching of others (again in my humble opinion, quite understandably).