Free Trieste

UPDATE: this petition can no longer be signed. In 2014, Free Trieste sought the establishment of basic income in the present-day FTT. To stay updated about the Movement’s current actions, we suggest following its social media or visiting its website.

15 September 2014: Free Trieste’s sit-in before the City Hall.

Free Trieste’s new political-diplomatic and legal action

The “Charter of Social Rights”

of the Free Territory of Trieste

Opening of a petition for basic income!

This year the Free Trieste Movement has not dedicated the 15th of September, anniversary of the establishment of the Free Territory of Trieste by virtue of the Treaty of Peace of Paris, to celebrative marches; instead, it focused on effective problems  ad the spreading of poverty in Trieste, which is overwhelming several thousand of people and their families, also because of the lack of social assistance and of the indifference of local politicians.

This is why the Free Trieste Movement presented an act, signed by President Roberto Giurastante, addressing both the Italian Government, entrusted with temporary administration over the FTT, and the Security Council of the United Nations, for its role of guarantor of the Free Territory: it is a criminal complaint against Mayor Cosolini, city councillors, and local councillors following their cuts to the mandatory budget for social assistance in order to divert those founds to optional activities.

The act is also a “Charter of social rights” of the Free Territory of Trieste, because it identifies the legal bases of the right to social protection and also the obligation of the administering Government to grant social assistance to them, in compliance with the provisions of the Treaty of Peace, with the conventions of the United Nations on Human Rights, and with the general principles of the Italian legal system (both Constitutional and European law), which were extended to the legal system of the Free Territory by the provisional Government.

On those legal bases, and considering the legal fact that the Italian Government is entrusted with an international trusteeship mandate over Trieste, received with the Memorandum of London of 1954, while the Italian State has no sovereignty over the Free Territory, the Free Trieste Movement claims that social protection owed to the population of the Free Territory is a primary, compulsory expense for both the administering Government and its local bodies, as well as a duty of local administrators, which does also include the right to a basic income.

Basic income is a minimum, monthly income, it is granted to all citizens and residents over the legal age as long as they don’t have enough economic resources for their ordinary, daily needs, and it is an instrument of social protection and economical balance applied by nearly all other states in Europe, which gain this money back thanks to VATs and other taxes they receive thanks to the increasing purchases and consequent reduction of other public welfare structures.

Free Trieste does also argue that the administering Italian Government is responsible for the seriousness of the economic crisis of Trieste, especially because it forces on the city the legal and fiscal system of the Italian State, with no legal right and despite that system being burdened by an abnormal public debt that suffocates companies, also, the provisional Government avoids to enforce the international laws on the Free Port, which otherwise would be the main source of direct and indirect income for the Free Territory (the complaint was notified to the Mayor during a rally and a sit-in with 250 supporters, standing in front of the City Council).

Following the Complaint (published at this LINK) and recalling the same legal principles, Free Trieste is now collecting signatures for a petition to address the administering Italian Government and the United Nations, requesting basic income be granted to all citizens and residents in the Free Territory. The signatures will be collected at the info-points of the Movement and at the reception of the headquarter in Piazza della Borsa 7, schedule: 10-12AM and 5-7 PM, Monday through Friday.

[F.W.]