engleski

The problems of the Italo-Croato-Slovene border delimitation in the Northern Adriatic

Multiple borders in the Northern Adriatic and in its hinterland are a fairly new phenomenon. The part of the Mediterranean Sea between the Istrian Penninsula and the Venetian Lagoons was not divided among states until far after WW2. It was Republic of Venice’s property until its surrender to Napoleon; later, Austria took control of it to the point in time (1919) when Italy expanded its post-WW1 borders to the East and incorporated the ethnically mixed land area of Istria into its own state. The delayed post-WW2 boundary settlement in the Northern Adriatic divided land, sea and people among two states, different in their composition and global orientation: a unitary nation-state, democratic and »western« Italy and a uniquely communistic and non-aligned »eastern« federation of Yugoslavia. That was not all! A temporary variety of intermediate sub-state forms (The Free Territory of Trieste) and administrative divisions, which matched none of the former states’ units, were put in place. A few war-threatening situations and the following peace settlement and cooperation agreements beetween Yugoslavia and Italy finally set the state border. In 1975 the Osimo accords were signed. In the hinterland of Trieste and Gorizia and at sea major development projects were put into the planning stage by it, but rare they were rarely realised. As a consequence of the devolution of the multi-ethnic federation two decades later (1991), two nation-states Croatia and Slovenia gained control of the previously Yugoslav territory of the Northern Adriatic. The geopolitical relationship was modified, not always to the better of the inherited situation. The disputed maritime border between the two newly established democracies is a major obstacle to prosperity and cooperation in the Northern Adriatic.

Delimitation; maritime border; mutual agreement; territorial claims

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