Yugoslavia, Italy, and European integration: was Osimo 1975 a Pyrrhic victory?

ABSTRACT

This work reappraises the international dimension of the Osimo Treaties which, in 1975, solved the border question between Italy and Yugoslavia and also shows the connection of such agreements to Yugoslavia’s attitude towards the process of Western European economic integration. This article argues that, on the Yugoslav side, the solution of the border problem was shaped by the peculiar economic interests of the northern republics – Slovenia and Croatia – which regarded the end of the border question as a means to foster cooperation with Italy and, at the same time, to obtain privileged access to the expanding Common Market.

KEYWORDS:

• Yugoslavia
• Italy
• European integration
• Osimo

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Angela Romano, Federico Romero, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Saša Mišić, Pomirenje na Jadranu: Jugoslavija i Italija na putu ka Osimskim sporazumima iz 1975. [Reconciliation in the Adriatic: Yugoslavia and Italy on their way to the 1975 Osimo Agreements] (Belgrade: Fakultet političkih nauka Univerziteta Beograd, 2018); Massimo Bucarelli, La questione jugoslava nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana (1945–1999) (Rome: Aracne, 2008), 45–82; Viljenka Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja [The Osimo negotiations] (Koper: Založba Annales, 2007).

² Benedetto Zaccaria, La Strada per Osimo: Italia e Jugoslavia allo specchio (Milan : FrancoAngeli, 2018); Luciano Monzali, Gli italiani di Dalmazia e le relazioni italo-jugoslave nel Novecento (Venice: Marsilio, 2015), 614–43; Jože Pirjevec, Borut Klabjan, and Gorazd Bajc, eds., Osimska Meja: Jugoslovansko-italijanska pogajanja in razmejitev leta 1975 [The Osimo border: Italian-Yugoslav negotiations and demarcation in 1975] (Koper: Založba Annales, 2006).

³ Massimo Bucarelli et al., eds., Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in The Age of International Détente (Brussels: PIE Peter Lang, 2016); Karlo Ruzicic-Kessler, “Italy and Yugoslavia: from Distrust to Friendship in Cold War Europe,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 19, no. 5 (2014): 641–64; Luciano Monzali, “‘I nostri vicini devono essere nostri amici’. Aldo Moro, L’Ostpolitik italiana e gli accordi di Osimo,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, and Massimo Bucarelli (Lecce: Besa, 2011), 89–107.

⁴ Jussi Hanhimäki, “Détente in Europe, 1962–1975,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. II., ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 198–218; Angela Romano, From Détente in Europe to European Détente. How the West shaped the Helsinki CSCE (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2009).

⁵ Elena Calandri, Daniele Caviglia, and Antonio Varsori, eds., Détente in Cold War Europe. Politics and Diplomacy in the Mediterranean and the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012); Effie Pedaliu, “‘A Sea of Confusion’: The Mediterranean and Détente, 1969–1974,” Diplomatic History 33, no. 4 (2009): 735–50.

⁶ Stevan K. Pavlowitch, “Yugoslavia: Internal Problems and International Role,” in The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, ed. Wilfried Loth and Georges-Henry Soutou (London: Routledge, 2008), 77–87.

⁷ Lucrezia Comminelli, L’Italia sotto tutela: Stati Uniti, Europa e crisi italiana degli anni Settanta (Florence: Le Monnier, 2014), 147–85; Antonio Varsori, “Puerto Rico (1976): le potenze occidentali e il problema comunista in Italia,” Ventunesimo Secolo 7, no. 16 (2008): 89–121.

⁸ See Zaccaria, La strada per Osimo, 143–9.

⁹ Massimo Bucarelli, “La politica estera italiana e la soluzione della questione di Trieste: gli accordi di Osimo del 1975,” Qualestoria 41, no. 2 (2013): 29–54.

¹⁰ To analyse the centre-periphery relationship at federal level, this study makes use of primary sources from the archives of the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Trade (Savezni Sekretarijat za Spoljnu Trgovinu, SSST) which includes the correspondence with the republic-level governing bodies and chambers of commerce, as well as the stenographic reports of the Federal Executive Council meetings (SIV) and documents from the Cabinet of the President of the Republic (KPR), stored at the Arhiv Jugoslavije (Archives of Yugoslavia) in Belgrade.

¹¹ Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja.

¹² Miljan Milkić, Tršćanska Kriza u Vojno-Političkim Odnosima Jugoslavije sa Velikim Silama, 1943–1947 [The Trieste Crisis in military-political relations of Yugoslavia with the Great Powers, 1943–1947] (Belgrade: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2013); Giampaolo Valdevit, Il dilemma Trieste. Guerra e dopoguerra in uno scenario europeo (Leg: Gorizia, 1999); Diego De Castro, La questione di Trieste. L’azione politica e diplomatica italiana dal 1943 al 1954 (Trieste: Lint, 1981); Raoul Pupo, La rifondazione della politica estera italiana: la questione giuliana (1944–46): linee interpretative (Udine: Del Bianco, 1979); Jean Baptiste Duroselle, Le conflit de Trieste 1943–1954 (Brussels: Editions de l’Institut de Sociologie de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1966).

¹³ Dragan Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad 1952–1955. Jugoslovensko približavanje Nato-U [Yugoslavia and the West 1952–1955: the Yugoslav approach to NATO] (Belgrade: Službeni list Srbije, 2000); Lorraine M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat: The United States, Yugoslavia and the Cold War (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1997); Beatrice Heuser, Western ‘Containment’ Policies in the Cold War. The Yugoslav Case, 1948–1953 (London: Routledge, 1989).

¹⁴ Ruzicic-Kessler, “Italy and Yugoslavia,” 646.

¹⁵ Werner Kilian, Die Hallstein-Doktrin. Der diplomatische Krieg zwischen der BRD und der DDR 1955–1973 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001), 52–65.

¹⁶ B. Zaccaria, The EEC’s Yugoslav Policy in Cold War Italy (1968–1980) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 22–3.

¹⁷ Ivan Obadić, “A Troubled Relationship: Yugoslavia and the European Economic Community in Détente,” European Review of History 21, no. 2 (2014): 329–48.

¹⁸ Zaccaria, La strada per Osimo, 24–8.

¹⁹ Obadić, “A Troubled Relationship,” 329–48.

²⁰ Benedetto Zaccaria, “Contro l’ambiguità della leadership politica. Folco Trabalza ambasciatore a Belgrado (1967–1971),” Ventunesimo Secolo, no. 41 (2017): 145–67; On Špiljak's visit to Rome, see: Information on Mika Špiljak’s visit to Italy, 18 January 1968, File 115, Fond 751, Arhiv Jugoslavije, Belgrade (AJ). All cited materials from Yugoslav archives are originally in the Serb, Croat, or Slovene languages; titles and texts have been translated by the author.

²¹ Ivo Banac, “’We Did Not Quarrel, We Did Not Curse’: The Price of Yugoslav Independence After the Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia,” in The Balkans in the Cold War, ed. S. Rajak et al. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 173–96.

²² Information on the EEC and Yugoslavia’s cooperation with this international organisation, Belgrade, 3 October 1970, KPR II-b-2-a, AJ.

²³ Information on the EEC and Yugoslavia’s cooperation with this international organisation, Belgrade, 3 October 1970, KPR II-b-2-a, AJ.

²⁴ Saša Mišić, “A Difficult Reconciliation in the Adriatic. The Yugoslav Road to the Osimo Agreements of 1975,” in Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia, ed. Bucarelli et al., 252.

²⁵ Colloquio On. Leone – Ministro jugoslavo per il Coordinamento del Commercio con l’Estero, 20.9.1968, Ufficio del Consigliere diplomatico, b. 130, Archivio Storico della Presidenza della Repubblica, Rome.

²⁶ Šnuderl to SIV, 12 May 1969, Pov. 02–821/2, File 277, Fond 751, AJ.

²⁷ Peci-Popović (SSST) to Federal Chamber of Commerce, Council for International Economic Relations, 5 January 1968, Pov. 02–16, File 154, Fond 751, AJ.

²⁸ Patrick Artisien and Peter J. Buckley, “Joint Ventures in Yugoslavia: Opportunities and Constraints,” Journal of International Business Studies 16, no. 1 (1985): 111–35.

²⁹ On later developments of the Alpe-Adria scheme, see Karlo Ruzicic-Kessler, “Avvicinamento e cooperazione interregionale: La Jugoslavia nei rapporti di vicinato con l’Austria e l’Italia (1968–1978),” Acta Histriae 26, no. 3 (2018): 787–806.

³⁰ See the report of the National Bank of Yugoslavia to SSST, Br. V/1-LM/DM, Belgrade, 9 April 1968, File 154, Fond 751, AJ; Lojze Cukala (Chamber of commerce of Slovenia) to Petar Tomić (SSST), 18 November 1969, Pov. 50/2–69/03 Kam, File 277, Fond 751, AJ.

³¹ Socialist Republic of Slovenia, Republican Secretariat for Economy, Analysis of regional commercial agreement under the new exchange conditions, 12 February 1968, Fil 154, Fond 751, AJ.

³² Information on Yugoslavia’s relations with some EEC member states, 28 December 1967, KPR II-b-2-a Arhiv Predsednika Republike, AJ.

³³ Dusan Avramov (Yugoslav General Consulate in Milan) to SSST, 12 February 1968, File 154, Fond 751, AJ.

³⁴ Detlef Nakath, “Die DDR – ‘heimliches Mitglied’ der Europäischen Gemeinschaft? Zur Entwicklung des innerdeutschen Handels vor dem Hintergrund der westeuropäischen Integration,” in Aufbruch zum Europa der zweiten Generation. Die europäische Einigung 1969–1984, ed. Franz Knipping and Matthias Schönwald (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2004), 451–73.

³⁵ M. Tepina (Yugoslav General Consulate in Trieste) to SSST, Pov. Br. 350/II, 6.11.1969, File 277, Fond 751, AJ.

³⁶ National Bank of Yugoslavia to SSST, Br. V/1-LM/DM, Belgrade, 9 April 1968, File 154, Fond 751, AJ [89].

³⁷ SSST – Report on commercial preliminary commercial talks with Italy held in Rome on 26–30 April 1969, Belgrade, 7 May 1969, Pov. Br. 02–752/4, File 277, Fond 751, AJ.

³⁸ L. Cukala [Chamber of commerce of Slovenia] to P. Tomić [SSST], 22 December 1969, Pov. 57/2–69, File 277, Fond 751, AJ.

³⁹ Information on conversation between Z. Perišič (SSIP) and V. Gorga (Italian Embassy in Belgrade) held in Belgrade on 22 January 1969, Pov. Br. 42414, File 277, Fond 751, AJ; Information on conversation with R. Misasi [Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs], 18–19 September 1969, Pov. Br. 1800/1, File 277, Fond 751, AJ.

⁴⁰ Milan Kosanović, “Brandt and Tito: Between Ostpolitik and Nonalignment,” in Ostpolitik, 1969–1974: European and Global Responses, ed. Carole Fink and Bernd Schaefer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 232–43; Kaja Shonick, “Politics, Culture, and Economics: Reassessing the West German Guest Worker Agreement with Yugoslavia,” Journal of Contemporary History 44, no. 4 (2009): 719–36.

⁴¹ Bucarelli, “La politica estera italiana,” 38–47.

⁴² Zaccaria, La strada per Osimo, 41–52.

⁴³ Antonio Varsori, “The European Construction in the 1970s. The Great Divide,” in Europe in the International Arena During the 1970: Entering a Different World, ed. Antonio Varsori and Guia Migani (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2011), 27–39.

⁴⁴ Secretariat of the President of the Republic, Group on Economic Questions, Information on economic cooperation programs among EEC member states, 17 July 1970, KPR II-b-2-a, AJ; SSST report on technical barriers in International trade, 14 January 1970, Pov. Br. 70/1, File 416, Fond 751, AJ.

⁴⁵ SSST report on proposals by the Chambers of Commerce of Slovenia, the Chamber of Commerce of Croatia and the Chamber of Commerce of Macedonia on fair agreements and border trade with Italy, Austria and Greece, Belgrade, 12 Febuary 1970, br. 02–322, File 416, Fond 751, AJ.

⁴⁶ D. Djermanović (Chamber of Commerce of Croatia – Secretariat of the Council for International Economic Relations) to D. Šoškić (SSST), Zagreb, 23 June 1970, pov. Br. 02–1149/1, File 416, Fond 751, AJ.

⁴⁷ K. Car (Republican Secretariat for Economy – Socialist Republic of Croatia) to SSST, Zagreb, 21 October 1970, Br. Pov-14–136/1–1970, File 416, Fond 751, AJ.

⁴⁸ M. Pečar (Republican Secretariat for Economy – Socialist Republic of Slovenia) to SSST, Ljubljana, 22 October 1970, Pov. 97/1–1970, File 416, Fond 751, AJ.

⁴⁹ Information on the first phase of negotiations between the SFRY and the EEC for the conclusion of a new commercial agreement, Belgrade, 15 May 1973, Pov.br. 117/1/73KPR, III-b-2-a, AJ.

⁵⁰ Zaccaria, La strada per Osimo, 59.

⁵¹ Saša Mišić, “Poseta Josip Broz Tita Italij 1971. Godine” [Josip Broz Tito’s visit to Italy in 1971] in Tito – viđenja i tumačenja. Zbornik radova [Tito – perceptions and interpretations. Collection of works] (Belgrade: Institut za Noviju Istoriju Srbije e Arhiv Jugoslavije, 2011), 508–12.

⁵² Zaccaria, La strada per Osimo, 66–9.

⁵³ John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 299–302; Sabrina P. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimisation, 1918–2005 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006), 227–63.

⁵⁴ Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia – Executive Council – Office for Foreign Affairs, Subject: SFRY-Italy, New text of the Udine Agreement on local border traffic of persons, Ljubljana, 21 January 1972, 90-eve/64, File 687, Fond 751, AJ.

⁵⁵ Socialist Republic of Slovenia – Republican Secretariat for the Economy, Conclusions from the Consultation on Border Trade with Italy, 17 March 1972, Štev.: Pov 6/4–1972, File 687, Fond 751, AJ.

⁵⁶ B. Trampuž (Yugoslav General Consulate in Trieste) to D. Šoškić (SSST), Trst, 10 April 1972, Pov. Br. 119/II, File 687, Fond 751, AJ.

⁵⁷ B. Nonković (Chamber of commerce of Rijeka) to SSST on conversation with Italy, Rijeka, 17 May 1972, Br. 14-Pov. Br. 9/72-SV/DP, File 687, Fond 751, AJ.

⁵⁸ S. Kavčič (Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia – Executive Council) to SSST, Ljubljana, 31 July 1972, File 687, Fond 751, AJ.

⁵⁹ Socialist Republic of Slovenia, Republican Secretariat for Economy, Report to the SSST on economic relations with Italy, Ljubljana, 9 June 1972, Štev.: 29/2–1972, File 687, Fond 751, AJ.

⁶⁰ B. Trampuž (Yugoslav General Consulate in Trieste) to SSIP, Trst, 22 June 1972, File 687, Fond 751, AJ; Chamber of Commerce of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (Zagreb) to SSST, 30 May 1973, XXIV Pov. Br. 73, File 826, Fond 751, AJ; SSST report on meeting on border trade problems with Italy at the Chamber of Commerce of Slovenia on 13 and 14 November 1973, Pov. Br. 02–2241/1, Belgrade, 15 November 1973, File 826, Fond 751, AJ.

⁶¹ N. Filipović (Federal Secretariat for Economy) to M. Hadžić, Belgrade, 21 February 1973, File 776, Fond 751, AJ.

⁶² David A. Dyker, Yugoslavia: Socialism, Development, and Debt (London: Routledge, 1990), 94.

⁶³ V. Škorjanec, “Jugoslovensko-italijanski odnosi v luči dubrovniškega srećanja zunanjih ministrov 1973,” Zgodivinski časopis 55, no. 3–4 (2001), 479–87.

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Susan L. Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945–1990 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 225.

⁶⁶ Zaccaria, The EEC’s Yugoslav Policy in Cold War Europe, 47–72.

⁶⁷ Stenographic notes from the 68th session of SIV, 29 June 1972, File 1302, Fond 130, AJ.

⁶⁸ In this regard, see Pismo Borisa Šnuderla Sergeju Kraigherju, Ljubljana, junij 1974 [Letter by Boris Šnuderl to Sergej Kraigher], VIRI, no. 23 (Ljubljana, 2006), Doc. 80.

⁶⁹ SSST Information on IV meeting of Mixed Commission on Commercial agreement with Italy, 25 January 1973, Pov. Br. 02–201, File 826, Fond 751, AJ.

⁷⁰ SSST Report on conversations with C. Parisi, General Inspector of Directorate for Foreign Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Trieste, 31 January 1973, Pov. 02–251, File 826, Fond 751, AJ; L. Pfaff (Chamber of Commerce of Croatia) to SSST, Zagreb, 30 March 1973, Pov. 41, File 826, Fond 751, AJ.

⁷¹ Stenogram Kolegija SS o Italiji 11 January 1974. godine [Stenographic notes from the Foreign Affairs Cabinet Meeting on 11 January 1974], VIRI, no. 23 (Ljubljana, 2006), Doc. 58. See also Mišić, “A Difficult Reconciliation,” 249–81.

⁷² Zaccaria, La strada per Osimo, 100–3.

⁷³ Stenographic notes from the 209th session of SIV, 20 March 1974, File 2041, Fond 130, AJ.

⁷⁴ Patrick F. R. Artisien and Stephen Holt, “Yugoslavia and the E.E.C. in the 1970s,” Journal of Common Market Studies 18, no. 4 (1980): 355–69, here 360.

⁷⁵ Stenographic notes from the 206th session of SIV, 6 March 1974, File 2040, Fond 130, AJ.

⁷⁶ Stenographic notes from the 206th session of SIV, 6 March 1974, File 2040, Fond 130, AJ; On Yugoslavia's relations with COMECON, see Artisien and Holt, “Yugoslavia and the E.E.C.,” 360.

⁷⁷ Ibid.

⁷⁸ Stenographic notes from the 209th session of SIV, 20 March 1974, File 2041, Fond 130, AJ; SSST, Information on conversations with Italian Minister for Foreign Trade in Rome (27–28 February 1974), Pov. Br. 01/01–864/1, File 978, Fond 751, AJ.

⁷⁹ Stenografske Beleške sa XVIII sednice Predsedništva Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, održane 23.XII.1974 godine na Brionima [Stenographic notes from the XVIII meeting of the Presidency of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 23 December 1974 in Brioni], VIRI, no. 24 (Ljubljana, 2007), Doc. 32.

⁸⁰ Bucarelli, “La politica estera italiana,” 51–4; M. Udina, Gli accordi di Osimo. Lineamenti introduttivi e testi annotati (LINT, Trieste 1979).

⁸¹ Roberto Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare. Per una storia della politica estera italiana (1943–1991) (Bologna: il Mulino, 1995), 217–18; Giampaolo Valdevit, Trieste. Storia di una periferia insicura (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2004), 119.

⁸² Eugenio Carbone was aware of such an economic-political rationale, and in December 1974 informed Aldo Moro, then Italy’s prime minister, about the link between Osimo and European integration. In this regard, see Bucarelli, “La politica estera italiana,” 52, footnote 77.

⁸³ Communication de la Commission au Conseil concernant l’agrandissement de la zone franche de Trieste, Bruxelles, 31 October 1975, Secret, EN 1106, Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence.

⁸⁴ Zaccaria, The EEC’s Yugoslav Policy, 99–128.

⁸⁵ Monzali, Gli italiani di Dalmazia, 627–9; Bucarelli, “La politica estera italiana,” 51–4.

⁸⁶ Information on meeting between Minić and Rumor in Ancona, Belgrade, 10 November 1975, Kpr, I-5-b/44–18, AJ.

⁸⁷ Stenografske Beleške sa XVIII sednice Predsedništva Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, održane 23.XII.1974 godine na Brionima [Stenographic notes from the XVIII meeting of the Presidency of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 23 December 1974 in Brioni], VIRI, no. 24 (Ljubljana, 2007), Doc. 32.

⁸⁸ Marie-Janine Calic, “The Beginning of the End – The 1970s as a Historical Turning Point in Yugoslavia,” in The Crisis of Socialist Modernity. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1970s, ed. Marie-Janine Calic, Dietmar Nautatz and Julia Obertreis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 66–86; Dyker, Yugoslavia: Socialism, Development, and Debt, 114–27.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to this article is part of the project PanEur1970s, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [Grant Agreement No. 669194].

Notes on contributors

Benedetto Zaccaria

Benedetto Zaccaria is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. He is also external researcher of the ERC-funded project entitled ‘Looking West: The European Socialist Regimes Facing Pan-European Cooperation and the European Community’, at the Department of History and Civilization at the European University Institute, Florence. Among his publications: The EEC’s Yugoslav Policy in Cold War Europe (1968–1980) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and La Strada per Osimo. Italia e Jugoslavia allo specchio, 1965–1975 (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2018).