Free Trieste

The current attempt of the local Italian establishment to turn the northern sector of the Trieste Free Port in an urban area by removing it from State Property status constitutes a serious violation of the 1947 Treaty of Peace, which establishes it as a permanent State property of the Free Territory of Trieste.

Currently, the local establishment is attempting to transfer ownership of the Port to the Municipality of Trieste and then to sell most of the area. Ignoring its international status: a Free Zone of the international Free Port of Trieste, in the name of a private-driven housing and building speculation.

The Agenzia del Demanio (Italian State Property Office) cannot do it without simulating the sovereignty of the Italian Republic over the international Free Port of Trieste. Because, again, the Italian Peace Treaty ended Italian sovereignty over Trieste, and ultimately assigned all movable and immovable properties within its 1939 boundaries to the international Free Port of Trieste. This constitutes the constrained core of the international Free Port of Trieste, one of the Free Territory of Trieste’s most valuable State-owned assets.

There are no legal titles that justify re-assigning any of those assets (or any other identified under Art. 2 of Annex VIII of the 1947 Treaty of Peace) to the Italy (or to any other State, for the matter). Doing so would give raise to liabilities for fraud, and the situation would worsen in case the area is sold. And this is exactly what the Municipality wants to do, causing an unjustified damage to the Northern sector of the international Free Port.

But how did we get here? The 1947 Treaty of Peace had finally solved an intricate situation regarding the important Port of Trieste. After WWI, that Port and the city were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy (Treaty of Rapallo, 1920). In 1920, Italy had gained control of its  most dangerous competitor, the “enemy” of Italian ports.

Trieste had been happily united with House of Austrian for half a millennium, and the the Port of Trieste was the Empire-s main port.

The Port of Trieste owes its prosperity to no other but Austria, which had made it the Free Port of the Empire. An Empire which, right before WWI, had 52 millions of inhabitants and its Free Port of Trieste was one of the most important ports in the world. It was Austria and Austria alone to create that Free Port: politically the city had nothing to do with Italy.

Trieste’s fall into darkness began with the dissolution of the Empire, when it was assigned to Italy, a State without any interest in its development. The port’s strategic position favored the States of Central Europe, and they were outside Italy’s influence.

From one occupation to another. After the Armistice of Cassibile, signed by the Kingdom of Italy with the Allied Powers (3rd September 1943) in WWII, it was Nazi Germany to take the city. As aggressor in the war, Italy surrendered without conditions to the Allies and sided against Germany, its former ally. Trieste was occupied by Germany as part of the OZAK – Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland (Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral).

When the war ended, the 1947 Treaty of Peace established Trieste as a new State, independent from Italy under Article 21. On 15 September 1947, as the Treaty came into force, Italy lost all sovereign rights over the Free Territory of Trieste.

This is how the Free Territory of Trieste became independent, under a Provisional Regime of Government, and free from all  Fascist laws. Italy, now re-established as a Republic, has no authority over it.

However, since 1954, in breach of the Treaty of Peace, the officers of the Italian Republic in charge of administering Trieste pursuant to their Government’s sub-mandate of temporary administration, simulate Italian sovereignty over the city and its port.

The simulation’s peak is exactly the attempted annexation of the International Free Port of Trieste by making it a property of the Italian State. An illegitimate action, exactly like the previous, undeclared annexation of the Third Reich. Or even roste than it, because it is taking place at the hand of the authorities of a defeated State, in a time of peace, and in breach of the Treaty of Peace in force. A Treaty that all Signatories committed to respected. Including the Italian Republic.

Translated from blog “Ambiente e Legalità” – “Environment and Legality” by Roberto Giurastante