25th Anniversary of the Osimo Agreements
10 November marked the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Osimo Agreements by which Italy and the then Socialist federal republic of Yugoslavia regulated international recognition of the state border and agreed to strengthen cooperation in economy and other fields. In this way the two states advocated the protection of ethnic minorities. The Agreements came into force in April 1977 and were taken over by Slovenia with the exchange of notes in July 1992. Although the signing took place 25 years ago, some of its stipulations have not yet been implemented.
On 10 November 1975, the former Yugoslavia and Italy signed in Osimo near Ancona a treaty which peacefully solved disputed issues originating in the WWII. The agreements were labelled by the international public as the first direct implementation of principles contained in the Helsinki Declaration on Security and Cooperationin Europe. The agreements were adopted by all Italian parties. Nevertheless the adoption triggered strong opposition of far-right and nationalist forces in Italy, which gathered 65,000 signatures in protest.
The Osimo Agreements consist of an agreement on the border and related issues, strengthening of economic cooperation and on a joint free zone in Karst and SW Slovenia.
Twelve mixed commissions had been established to implement the agreements. The signing of the agreements officially confirmed the division of territory in line with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Italian, the U.S., the U.K. and former Yugoslav governments, signed in London in 1954. Thus Zone A of the then Free Area of Trieste, including the city of Trieste, fell under Italy, while Zone B fell under Yugoslavia. The treaty also set down the right of Italian claimants for compensations for the property they left behind on the Yugoslav territory when they moved to Italy, and the right to protection of the Italian ethnic minority in Yugoslavia and the Slovene minority in Italy.
The basic stipulations of the Osimo Agreements are political in nature. They concern the description of the sea and land border, procedures to determine the border, and the conditions and ways of regulating citizenship, compensations for the seized property, possible migration and social security of persons living in both zones of the free territory.
The Preamble and Article 8 of the border agreement touch on minority issues. The signatory countries pledged their commitment to the principle of the greatest possible degree of protection of ethnic minorities. They bound themselves to keep in force internal measures which had been adopted during the implementation of a special statute to the London Memorandum, once this statute is no longer in force. They furthermore pledged they would provide equal protection of minorities as stipulated by the special statute within their internal law.
The statute also apecified political and citizens' rights of Slovenes living in Italy, representation in administrative bodies, education and mother tongue, the right to their own press, public use of the Slovene language, the establishment of political, cultural and sports organisations as well as economic development based on a fair distribution of the funds available.
Italy's obligations related to the safeguarding of the Slovene ethnic minority can be considered as one of the non-realised or dropped Osimo Agreementsstipulations. A bill on the comprehensive protection of the minority in Italy was given the green light by the Italian lower chamber of parliament only this year, still awaiting approval from the Senate. Awaiting resolution are also issues regarding the return of the archives, cadastral registers and land registers as well as cultural property and works of art which were stolen at the end of WWII from Slovene territory.
In line with Osimo Agreements regulations to reach an agreement as soon as possible on the compensation to be obtained by those Italian citizens from Zone B whose property was nationalised or taken in any other way. The SFRY and Italy finalised the Rome Agreement in 1983. Successor to the agreement, Slovenia has been regulary remitting compensation to a special fiduciary account with the Dresdner Bank in Luxembourg. Around US$ 45.7 million has already been deposited there out of a total of US$ 68.2 million of the compensation Slovenia has to pay. The sum should have been distributed by Italy among those who were expropriated, but Rome has not yet informed Ljubljana of a bank account at which Slovenia could deposit the compensation money. There are still some in Italy who would like to see the confiscated property returned in kind. Italy thus made Slovenia's associate EU membership conditional upon the resolution of this issue. Italy concede to Slovenia and the EU signing the associate agreement only after what is called the Spanish compromise was made.