in 1953, officially, only 36,000 italians lived in yugoslavia, 16% of the italian population before world war ii. in its 1996 report on 'local self-government, territorial integrity and protection of minorities' the council of europe's european commission for democracy through law (the venice commission) put it that "a great majority of the local italians, italianites (of slavic and other origin), many thousands of slovenes and of nationally undefined bilingual 'istrians' used their legal right from the peace treaty to 'opt out' of the yugoslav controlled part of istria. in several waves they moved to italy and elsewhere (also overseas) and claimed italian or other citizenship. the mass exodus of the optanti (or "esuli" as they were called in italy) from 'godless communist yugoslavia' was actively encouraged by the italian authorities, italian radio and the roman catholic bishop of trieste. after this huge drain, the numerical strength of the remaining italian minority became stable".