Free Trieste

27 December 2014: let us save our Port!

The Northern Free Port of Trieste is a strategic sector of the international Free Port.

The Northern Free Port of Trieste is a strategic sector of the international Free Port.

Trieste, 27 December 2014. This morning Free Trieste organized a demonstration to defend the international Free Port of Trieste.

Indeed, this December 19th the Italian Government deceived the Senate into approving 3 amendments to the Italian Budget Law, paving the way to a massive, 1.5 billion EUR building and housing speculation at the expenses of the Northern Free Port.

The Northern Free Port is a strategic, constrained sector of the international Free Port of Trieste. Its status is provided by the 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy, which establishes it as a State Corporation of the Free Territory of Trieste and establishes general and special rights over it. In particular, the States of Central and Eastern Europe have significant special rights over it.

According to Free Trieste, the Italian Government’s action is “a severe thread to the economic opportunities and integrity of State” of the Free Territory. The Movement is preparing “new local and international actions to prevent the coming into force and the enforcement of that Italian law. The amendments would eliminate half of the international Free Port, promoting an illegal building and housing speculation. Those measures are also in-constitutional, because they breach both Italian and international law”.

The demonstration consisted in a march from Piazza della Borsa through Piazza Grande and the coast, reaching the entrance of the Northern Free Port. The participants stopped before the monument to Empress Elizabeth, where Roberto Giurastante, President of the Free Trieste Movement, spoke about the importance of the Northern Free Port.

Despite the short notice, festivities, and bad weather, more than 350 people marched together in the streets.

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