Press Conference held on 31.5.2018
Two legal actions return to the international Free Port of Trieste 60 hectares of port assets that had been illegally subtracted to it
On 29 May 2018, the International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste – I.P.R. F.T.T launched two legal actions to defend the international Free Port of Trieste and the rights that all States hold over it.
The first legal action is the appeal before Court seeking the declaration of nullity and voidness of the Land Registry Decree that, since December 2016, does illegally assign to the Municipality of Trieste 60 hectares of port assets that belong to the International Free Port of the Free Territory of Trieste.
The second legal action is the notification to the Mayor and other local authorities of a warning against using and selling the assets of the Free Port against the law.
The real estate value of those port assets amounts to about 3 to 5 billions Euro (about 3.5 to 6 billions US Dollar) and, over time, their functional value for international trade, industrial production, and financial assets is inestimable.
The international Free Port of Trieste is established as a State corporation of the Free Territory of Trieste under the Treaty of Peace with Italy of 10 February 1947, enforcing UN Security Council S/RES/16 (1947), to serve the ships and freight of all States, without discriminations.
The Treaty does therefore assign to the international Free Port of Trieste ownership of all port assets included within the boundaries of its permanent free zones, and establishes general and special rights of all States over them, in particular, for the landlocked Central European Countries.
The breach of the rights of property, purpose, and use of the permanent free zones of the international Free Port of the Free Territory of Trieste does therefore constitute also a violation of the economic rights and interests of all States and of their enterprises to trade and manufacture goods enjoying the special tax system of the Free Port and of the Free Territory, none of which is subject to the provisions of the European Union.
The temporary civil administration of the present-day Free Territory of Trieste and of its international Free Port is entrusted to the responsibility of the Italian Government by the Governments of the United States of America and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, for their role of primary administrators on behalf of the United Nations.
In the legal system of the Italian Republic, the international provisions of law that establish and regulate the Free Territory of Trieste and its International Free Port are fully ratified and enforced as international obligations with a pre-constitutional and constitutional rank higher than that of any other Italian law in force.
Therefore, the violation of rights regarding property, purpose, and use of 60 hectares of assets of the International Free Port of the Free Territory of Trieste was not committed by the Italian Government, rather, by a local group of politicians and real estate speculators who attempted to illegally subtract those assets to the international Free Port and sell them on the real estate market.
For this purpose, those politicians did include in an Italian law some provisions that envision to move the regime of the international Free Port away from those 60 hectares, remove the area from State Property, and transfer it to the Municipality of Trieste, for it to sell it on the real estate market and transfer all profits to an Italian Port Authority.
Under the law, those provisions are unenforceable, because the higher-ranking provisions of the Treaty of Peace with Italy – ratified and enforced within the very Italian legal system – prohibit the transfer of permanent areas of the International Free Port, their removal from State Property, the assignment of their ownership to other bodies, and also their sale.
Essentially, any such attempt does also constitutes an attempted massive, unprecedented fraud, which some local politicians and real estate speculators organized at the expenses of Trieste and of the whole International Community with a long, complex series of deceptive actions.
This whole incident was investigated carefully, and the results are perfectly documented, having revealed, as early as in 2014, also the risk of ties with the interests of powerful Italian Mafias.
The fraud was covered and allowed to continue by years of propaganda and disinformation. But now it is in the phase when the Municipality of Trieste attempts to use and to sell the areas of the International Free Port that are illegally assigned to it.
The International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste has therefore identified this as the time to ultimately stop those illegal operations by restoring, on the areas concerned, the exclusive legal rights of ownership, purpose, and use that the Treaty of Peace assigns to the international Free Port, to all States, and to their enterprises.
By virtue of the two converging legal actions just launched for this purpose, the areas temporarily subtracted to the international Free Port shall no longer be used by the Municipality directly or on behalf of third parties, shall not be sold or bought without the risk of eviction, and the politicians and officers who continue those operations would be personally liable for causing damages amounting to billions of Euro.
With its two legal actions, the International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste – I.P.R. F.T.T has duly taken care to return 60 hectares of International Free Port to the economy, work, and to the enterprises of the Free Territory of Trieste and of all other States, forcing compliance with the law in the interest of the whole International Community.
In this operation for the necessary and immediate re-establishment of the rule of law and of legality in opposition to political corruptions, the International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste is therefore confident to receive not only the support of the sub-administering provisional Italian Government, but also that of the Governments of the United States of America and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as primary administrators on behalf of the United Nations.
Download this statement: in English // in Italian.
Video of the press conference: LINK