Italy recognizes the Free Territory of Trieste
After being defeated in WWII, Italy signed the 1947 Treaty of Peace with the Allies and Associated Powers. This is when Italy has lost its sovereignty over Trieste.
It is worth mentioning that the Kingdom of Italy had only obtained Trieste in 1920 (Treaty of Rapallo).
10 JANUARY:
This date marks the anniversary of UNSC Resolution S/RES/16 (1947).
This Resolution approves the Security Council’s role respect to Trieste, and the Peace Treaty’s provisions for the newly independent Trieste. Finally, the UN Security Council accepts to be the new State’s guarantor.
This Resolution is the Territorio Libero di Trieste – Svobodno Tržaško Ozemlje – Free Territory of Trieste‘s “birth certificate”.
10 FEBRUARY:
This date marks the anniversary of Italian Peace Treaty‘s signature.
As soon as the Treaty came into force, Trieste became independent.
1. There is hereby constituted the Free Territory of Trieste, consisting of the area lying between the Adriatic Sea and the boundaries defined in Articles 4 and 22 of the present Treaty.
The Free Territory of Trieste is recognized by the Allied and Associated Powers and by Italy, which agree that its integrity and independence shall be assured by the Security Council of the United Nations.
2. Italian sovereignty over the area constituting the Free Territory of Trieste, as above defined, shall be terminated upon the coming into force of the present Treaty.
Allowing Trieste to become independent, the Allies compensated the city for the unfortunate post-WWI fate.
As mentioned before, the Kingdom of Italy occupied and annexed Trieste in 1920. Previously, the city was in a personal, willing union with the House of Austria lasting from 1382. Trieste’s Free Port, established in 1719, was the main of the Danube Area and one of the Mediterranean’s top ports.
However, during the harsh Italian rule, Trieste was strip of its ancient rights and autonomies. Unlike other European folks, the people of Trieste could not exercise the right to self-determinate either. They lost Austrian citizenship, and forcefully received the Italian one.
While the city suffered State-run forced Italianization and antisemitism, its Free Port suffered the loss of its hinterland. The authorities did also downgrade it for the sake of Italian ports.
THE FREE TERRITORY OF TRIESTE HAS NEVER LOST ITS INDEPENDENCE.
Since 1954, the present-day Free Territory of Trieste is sub-entrusted to the temporary civil administration of the Italian Government (not of the Italian State). The mandate’s source is a MoU that implements the 1947 Peace Treaty.
The US Department of State confirmed it in 1974, twenty years after the signature of the MoU: LINK
Even the later bilateral Italian-Yugoslav Treaty “of Osimo” confirms the MoU at art.7:
On the date of the entry into force of this Treaty, the Memorandum of Understanding signed at London on 5 October 1954 and its annexes shall cease to have effect in relations between the Italian Republic and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Each Party shall so notify the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Government of the United States of America and the United Nations Security Council within 30 days from the entry into force of this Treaty.
This means that the 1954 MoU ceases to have effect only in relations between Italy and Yugoslavia (which are States, and thus not signatories of the MoU).
Again, the 1954 MoU is an agreement between Governments. Due to this, the formula chosen by Italy and Yugoslavia confirms that the MoU remains in force: within the domestic legal orders of the four (three since 1992) States whose Governments signed the MoU, in their relations, and in their relations with the Free Territory.
Not to mention, the MoU implements the multilateral 1947 Treaty of Peace. A bilateral agreement among two of its signatories could not and cannot affect its efficacy in the legal order of its other signatories.
Finally, the United Nations confirmed it all once again with a 1983 letter: LINK
ITALY CONSIDERS THE 1947 TREATY OF PEACE IN FULL FORCE
The Italian Republic implements the 1947 Treaty of Peace within its domestic legislation.
This does also mean that the violations of Trieste’s right are not Italy’s fault.
It is the local Italian authorities who, instead of administering Trieste in compliance with the law, simulate Italian sovereignty over it.
This local establishment, shielded in anacronistic nationalism, is once again depriving Trieste of its rights. For instance, forcing the huge Italian taxes and public debt on its people. Or threatening its international Free Port for the sake of competing Italian ports.
Thanks to Free Trieste, this state of illegality can end. The people of Trieste can reclaim their rights, for their own sake and for that of all States in the world, because they have the right to enjoy the international Free Port of Trieste, established as the Free Territory’s most precious State Corporation.
The present-day Free Territory of Trieste.