In many territories on the border between Italy and Slovenia, there was – finally – a climate of osmosis. The measures introduced to limit the pandemic changed everything. Neither Rome nor Ljubljana were too worried. But there are those who, with creativity, “took the field” in favor of the complexity, interests and relationships of the cross-border areas.

It has been a schizophrenic year on the eastern border. The pandemic has erased many of the certainties of a population that had begun to believe that the border no longer existed. On the one hand, there have been comforting signals from Gorizia, where local administrators have done everything they can to continue collaborating; on the other hand, there have been those who have not seemed to be too worried about the limitations placed on the borders. The only certainty is that neither Rome nor Ljubljana have been too concerned about the complexity, interests and relationships of those who live between Italy and Slovenia.

The first to close were the Slovenians. It was March 10, 2020, when Prime Minister Marjan Šarec, shortly before handing over the control room to Janez Janša, did not miss the opportunity to announce on Twitter that the border with Italy would be “closed”. A few hours later the secondary crossings were blocked. In some places, rocks were even brought to block the road, in others the passage was impeded by piles of gravel. At the time, the coronavirus was spreading in Italy; in Slovenia there were few cases and the fear that the infection would spread massively was great.

More than others, Ziberna and Miklavič understood that the only way to get their territory out of the border marginality was to rethink it in an integrated way. This is precisely why they understood the title of European Capital of Culture 2025 as a great opportunity. The two evocative characters are the expression of their respective communities: Miklavič on the left, Ziberna on the right. The first probably doesn't mind that on Mount Sabotino there is still a prominent sign praising Marshal Tito; while the second finds nothing wrong with the fact that every year the veterans of the X Mas commemorate their dead by stopping in the atrium of the town hall. Two different worlds, so much so that in recent weeks Miklavič has welcomed the idea that the Gay Pride-FVG stops in his city, while Ziberna has clearly made it clear that he wants nothing to do with the initiative. To collaborate they used a simple strategy. They started working on the many things that unite them, leaving aside what divides them. It was neither a simple nor as obvious a choice as it might seem at first glance.

In the meantime, their two cities have become the symbol of collaboration between Slovenia and Italy. An example for everyone, so much so that they have been adopted by the two presidents of the republic. Last July, Sergio Mattarella and Borut Pahor stopped, hand in hand, in front of the Basovizza Foiba and in front of the Monument to the Slovenian anti-fascist martyrs shot in 1930, two places symbolic of the suffering caused to Slovenians and Italians by the authoritarian regimes of the last century. Now, next autumn, the two presidents will meet again in Gorizia and Nova Gorica. In the meantime, this week, Miklavič and Ziberna were received together at the Quirinale.

They would have a lot to teach Italian and Slovenian politics. First of all, that in times of crisis (and therefore also in dealing with the health emergency) the measures at the border should have been agreed upon. This was not done in March 2020 and is not being done now. Slovenia and Italy have continued to move forward in a scattered order in the chaos caused by the virus. Rome and Ljubljana have managed the border without caring about the problems of the local population: the only ones they have cared about have been the cross-border workers. They have been allowed, almost undisturbed, to go to work or school on one side and to sleep on the other, but little or nothing has been done to maintain that entire network of relationships in a territory that had begun to be quite integrated.

Now, after 15 months of the border being opened intermittently, with rules that change day by day and with a substantial difference in the methods of crossing from one side to the other, it seems the time has come to calculate the damage of a policy that has never been able to think about the territory in a way that is different from the national one. The Italian minority in Slovenia and the Slovenian minority in Italy have suffered from it, but so has the entire segment of the population that had learned to live as if there were no border.