Greater Italy - Modern Day

Modern Day

After World War II, Italian Irredentism officially disappeared along with the defeated Fascists and the Monarchy of the House of Savoy. After Treaty of Paris (1947) and, after Treaty of Osimo (1975), all territorial claims were abandoned by the Italian State (see Foreign relations of Italy). Today, Italy, France, Malta, Greece and Slovenia are all members of the European Union, while Croatia, Montenegro and Albania are candidates for accession.

However, some Croatian and Slovenian politicians and organizations assert that some Italian politicians still propagate some irredentist ideas even in the 21st century, often causing sharp reactions from Croatian or Slovenian officials.

They often cite the then-Italian Deputy Gianfranco Fini, who in Senigallia in 2004 gave an interview to the Slobodna Dalmacija daily newspaper at the 51st gathering of the Italians who left Yugoslavia after World War II, in which he was reported to have said that "From the son of an Italian from Fiume I learned that those areas were and are Italian, but not because at any particular historical moment our army planted Italians there. This country was Venetian, and before that Roman". Rather than issuing an official rebuttal of those words, Carlo Giovanardi, then Parliamentary Affairs Minister in Berlusconi's government, affirmed Fini's words, saying "...that he told the truth".

These sources point out that on the 52nd gathering of the same association, in 2005, Carlo Giovanardi was quoted by the Večernji list daily newspaper as saying that Italy would launch a cultural, economic and touristic invasion in order to restore "the Italianness of Dalmatia" while participating in a roundtable discussion on the topic "Italy and Dalmatia today and tomorrow". Giovanardi later declared that he had been misunderstood, and sent a letter to the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which he condemned nationalism and ethnic strife.

They underline that Alleanza Nazionale (a former Italian conservative party, now merged in the People of Freedom party) derived directly from the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist party, which often claimed that Italy paid too much for her defeat in World War II. For example, in 1994, Mirko Tremaglia, a member of the MSI and later of Alleanza Nazionale, described Rijeka, Istria and Dalmatia as "historically Italian" and referred to them as "occupied territories", saying that Italy should "tear up" the 1975 Treaty of Osimo with the former Yugoslavia and block Slovenia and Croatia's accession to EU membership until the rights of their Italian minorities are respected.

In 2001, Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi gave the golden medal (for the aerial bombings endured during World War II) to the last Italian administration of Zadar, represented by its Gonfalone, which is currently owned by the association "Free municipality of Zadar in exile". Croatian authorities complained that he was awarding a fascist institution, although the motivations for the golden medal explicitly recalled the contribution of the city to the Resistance against Fascism. The motivations were contested by several Italian right wing associations, such as the same "Free municipality of Zadar in exile" and the Lega Nazionale.

In February 2007 (on "Foibe Memorial Day"), Italian President Giorgio Napolitano gave a statement in which he used phrases like "one of the barbarities of the century", "movement of hate and bloodthirsty rage", "Slavic annexationist project", when speaking about the Foibe massacres. The Croatian President Stjepan Mesić responded by stating that "it's impossible not to see in Napolitano's statements traces of open racism, historical revisionism and political revanchism". The European Commission asked for both sides to tone down and advised the Croatian President "not to use too sharp phrases".

On December 12, 2007, the Italian post office issued a stamp with a photo of the Croatian city of Rijeka and with the text "Fiume - eastern land once part of Italy" ("Fiume-terra orientale già italiana"). The same sources declared that the severity of this act could seen in use of prepositions and adjectives - affirming that "già italiana" could also mean "already Italian". According to Italian syntaxis the correct meaning in this case is only "previously Italian". 3.5 million copies of the stamp were printed, but it was not delivered by the Italian Post Office in order to forestall a possible diplomatic crisis with Croatian and Slovenian authorities . Nevertheless, intentionally or not, some of the stamps leaked out and came in official use.

Napolitano's statement in Feb 2008 (on "Foibe Memorial Day"), in which he reconfirmed his statements from 2007 and called Mesić's reactions from 2007 "unjustified", drew a sharp reaction from the Office of the Croatian President Stipe Mesić on 11 Feb 2008, saying that as a reaction to Napolitano's statement, there was no need to change any word from Mesić's reaction the previous year.

Italian exiles from Yugoslavia believe that all these complaints made by Croatian authorities (like President Mesic) are due to the fact that there it is a growing movement in Italy (and Europe) toward asking for the official recognition of "genocide" or even "democide" of the Italians in Istria and Dalmatia.