1947: THE ITALIAN PROVINCE OF TRIESTE IS ABOLISHED. 1948: A NEW HOMONYMOUS BODY IS ESTABLISHED: IT BELONGS TO THE FREE TERRITORY OF TRIESTE.
It seems like the Italian Republic regards provinces as its most useless local bodies, worth being eliminated, especially in the ongoing, harsh economic crisis. More often than not, provinces the doubles of other public administrations, however, they provide 60,000 jobs, and the resulting incomes. Some good example of Italian party-led markets. Which, in the end, is what has driven the nearby Republic in some hell of a socio-economic collapse.
However, among those 95 “useless” provinces there is a very peculiar one, actually a “special” one, because it doesn’t belong to Italy: it’s the Province of Trieste. In a way, it is correct saying this was the first abolished Italian province, and not even under Italian laws. Especially those recognizing the 1947 Italian Peace Treaty.
So is this a ghost-province? Not really: the present-day Province of Trieste exists since 1948. The Allied Military Government of the Free Territory of Trieste – AMG FTT, the Free Territory’s first Government of State established it to administer then “Zone A” of the new State.
Since 1954, the present-day FTT is under the Italian Government’s temporary civil administration, however, the local Italian authorities simulate that the 1948 Province is the same, homonymous Italian body that ended as did Italian sovereignty over Trieste. Why? Easy: it is to strengthen the illegal simulation of Italian sovereignty over Trieste.
International treaties are clear: after being defeated in WWII, Italy has lost sovereignty over Trieste. This happened at the coming into force of the Treaty of Peace, which rules (art. 21) that Trieste becomes the capital city of a new sovereign State: the Free Territory of Trieste.
Trieste, capital city of a State with the only international Free Port in the world, would not have its own Province until 1948: it is a body for the FTT’s provisional administration, its territorial extension corresponds with that of the “British-US Zone”. Also, unlike Italian provinces, it was not an elected assembly: the new State’s Military Governor would appoint its members directly.
This is how things are under the law. In 1954 the Governments of the US and of the UK sub-entrusted the Italian Government with temporary civil administration of the present-day FTT (MoU regarding the Free Territory of Trieste), which confirms the continuity of Trieste’s independence.
The 1975 bilateral Italian-Yugoslav treaty “of Osimo” confirms it again (art. 7), clarifying that the 1954 MoU ceases to have effects only within Italian-Yugoslav relations, without affecting any other party to either the MoU itself or the 1947 Treaty of Peace. Finally, while the international recognition (1991-1992) of Slovenia and Croatia’s sovereignty over former “zone B” of the Free Territory, that has in no way affected the legal status of main “zone A” or the present-day FTT.
Long story short, since 1947 Italy has no body called “Province of Trieste”. The only such body that exists today (2013) is an autonomous body of the Free Territory of Trieste. Pretending that the two bodies are the same only because they have the same name is not only against the law, but constitute an example of the illegal simulation of Italian sovereignty over the present-day Free Territory.
It is fundamental keeping in mind that such a simulation is against Italian law too: Italy implements and enforces the 1947 Treaty of Peace in its own Constitution (in force since the 1st day of January 1948 within its borders, which do not include Trieste or the territories lost after WWII), and in many other laws.
Two of the specific instruments are Legislative Decree No. 143 of 28 November 1947 and Law No. 3054 of 25 November 1952.
Another one worth mentioning: the Legislative Decree of the Temporary Head of State No. 1485 dated December 26th, 1947 (see image below). With this Legislative Decree, the Province of Gorizia receives the territories of the former Italian Province of Trieste (Venezia Giulia) left within the boundaries of the Italian State, as well as their public assets. This is how the newly established Republic of Italy organized Monfalcone and Grado within its new State borders.
This is also why Italy has 94 provinces, not 95 as wrongly reported also by many official sources: under no law Italy can claim Trieste’s Province as its own.
Translated from blog “Ambiente e Legalità” – “Environment and Legality” of Roberto Giurastante
Legislative Decree of the Temporary Head of State No. 1485 dated December 26th, 1947.