Trieste: Italian “autonomist” agitators who sabotage the international Free Port

NGO News Desk (Analysis by Paolo G. Parovel) :: Trieste: Italian “autonomist” agitators who sabotage the international Free Port. The international Free Port of the Free Territory of Trieste, entrusted under a mandate of temporary civil administration to the Italian Government on behalf of the Security Council of the United Nations, has three categories of antagonists, one is normal, and the other two are abnormal. The normal category is that of competing ports as such, and there is nothing to say about it.

The first abnormal category is that of the Italian Government and its political parties, which violate the temporary civil administration over the Free Territory and the rights of other States, suffocating the international Free Port to the benefit of Italian ports. They are doing it since decades, and we are standing to prevent them from continuing that.

On the contrary, the second abnormal category of antagonists is new: it consists in local groups of ignorant meddlers, fools and violent individuals in search of votes and political advantages who pretend to defend the Free Territory and the international Free Port with actions that, as a matter of fact, are useless, reckless and damaging. As well as being supported by Italian authorities.

The damaging strike of 26 and 27 August

On 26 and 27 August, they carried out a strike of Dockers, which is useless, unjustified and damaging, since the agreements requested had already been archived some days before. In facts, alongside with unaware citizens, at the demonstration of the strikers there were also violent agitators who attacked the police to claim they were attacked, going as far as accusing the police to have slowed down an ambulance that was providing urgent aid.

Also, the useless strike had been scheduled on the busiest day for the container terminal of the Molo VII (Dock VII) to cause the maximum possible damage. And the result is that one of the main foreign customers
considers that the Port of Trieste is no longer reliable and decided to divert to other ports a traffic of 8,000 containers each month, which results in the loss of about 60 jobs.

Annex VIII as an excuse

The responsible of this disastrous strike did also justify it with the generic request to enforce the provisions of Annex VIII of the Treaty of Peace of 1947, which regulate the international Free Port of the Free Territory of Trieste. But the analysis of their declarations makes it clear that they don’t know the subject and they misrepresent it to support political claims for autonomy in Italy.

This seems to be also the reason why the organizers of the reckless and violent strike were surprisingly accredited as “autonomist” political negotiators by the local representatives and press of the Italian Government in Trieste: the Prefect F.A. Garufi, the Commissar of the Port Authority Zeno d’Agostino, the regional department of Italian TV RAI as well as newspapers “Il Piccolo” and “Primorski dnevnik”.

The “autonomist” operation of Italian authorities

For instance, Italian provisional authorities are organizing an “autonomist” coalition of fake supporters of independence and others for local elections to be held in 2016, drawn upon the “Lista per Trieste” of 1976-2006, to
attempt using it to contrast the legal and political-diplomatic, successful action of the Free Trieste Movement, which, on the contrary, supports the Free Territory of Trieste and the International Free Port.

To do this, administering Italian authorities are helping the violent agitators with a scandalous judicial impunity (see LINK) and by other, more or less questionable means.

Still, it cannot be tolerated that Italian authorities go as far as encouraging reckless sabotages of the activities of the port and of its enterprises, as the whole current and future economy of Trieste depends on these.

It is the same Italian authorities that are attempting to destroy, even by illegal means, the qualified and responsible workshop of initiatives of the Free Trieste Movement, which promotes, even with the 20,000 signatures it has already collected, the full enforcement of the sovereignty of the FreeTerritory and the functioning of its international Free Port, as well as paying attention to favorite and to not damage the current activities of the port.

The real reasons of the crisis

The protection of the current port activities in the port of Trieste is necessary for the very fact that the administering Italian Government does dramatically put them at stake by imposing, illegally, the oppressive, corrupted and failing legal, economic and fiscal system of the State of Italy to the Free Territory of Trieste.

A failing system that in Trieste, besides sabotaging the regime of international Free Port, imposes to port enterprises costs that are enormously superior to these of the nearby ports of Koper (Slovenia) and Rijeka (Croatia), two active competitors that have the same body of international users.

It is enough reminding that in Koper and Rijeka the three main managerial costs of a container terminal, which are work force, fuel and energy, are 30/35% inferior, with pier facilities that, when it comes to Koper, the Slovenian Government is quickly expanding on the surface and on 18 meters seabed, while in Trieste the administering Italian Government prevents their realization, like it does in the Northern Free Port, or limits its promises to their realization with construction times from 10 to 35 years.

The consequences for enterprises

These behaviors of the administering Italian Government have two fundamental consequences on the enterprises that operate within the port of Trieste: to remain on the market they must apply the same charges as Koper and Rijeka, but paying the increased Italian costs, with a consequent reduction of their revenues, and in order to be competitive on market they must show levels of production and reliability superior to these of Koper and of Rijeka.

As long as the Italian administration over Trieste continues, and with it the administration over the port and economy of the whole Free Territory, the survival conditions of port enterprises and of the Free Territory itself are
extreme, require economic sacrifices, extraordinary efforts for both trades and marketing, as well as remaining conditioned not only to the objective productivity and reliability of the port, but also to the strategic perceptions
of their customers.

This is dramatically demonstrated by the fact that the useless and violent political strike of 26-27 August, did not only driven an important customer to remove from the port of Trieste 8,000 containers and 60 jobs, but it does
also risk to induce other customers to make similar decisions, also upon new advantageous commercial offers with which Koper and Rijeka might use the situation to their own advantage.

Conclusions and liabilities

This means that the competent activity of the Free Trieste Movement for the implementation of the laws that establish the Free Territory of Trieste, its international Free Port and the consequent rights of other States over it
can actually consolidate the short-mid term strategic interest of international customers. And, actually, this is already happening.

But it does also mean that the reckless activities of the local political idiots who, ignorant as they are, believe to realize the Free Territory and the Free Port, or to obtain autonomies within Italy with demonstrations, trivial political actions and violent behaviors can easily cause enormous and immediate damages to the enterprises, to the port and to the whole local economy.

Now, the Italian administering authorities of the Free Territory of Trieste can chose to keep supporting those dangerous idiots with political accredits, scandalous judicial impunities, money and media coverage to attempt sabotaging both the international Free Port and the action of the Free Trieste Movement. But they must also assume all liabilities for it, both to other States and to port enterprises. (Press Release)