On the eve of the meeting between the Italian and Croatian Foreign Ministers, the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia hopes that not only current issues will be addressed, but also those still open regarding the Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian exiles, their descendants and Adriatic Italianity in general.

As the successor state of Yugoslavia, Croatia has yet to clarify with Italy the modalities for liquidating the compensation due to it, based on the Treaty of Osimo and the subsequent Rome Agreements, with reference to the abandoned assets in its portion of competence of the former Zone B of the never established Free Territory of Trieste. With regret we have repeatedly denounced the lack of initiative on the part of our diplomacy on this issue, we hope that this meeting will serve to finally start the negotiation.

In a recent statement, the new Croatian President Milanović began to recognize the tragedy of the exodus of 90% of the native Italian community from Istria, while the collaborations that allowed the identification of burial sites of Italian victims of the massacres committed by Yugoslav partisans at the end of the war in Kastav and Ossero date back even further. These precedents invite us to hope that other foibe and mass graves will be explored, as is happening in Slovenia, and that tombstones and crosses will be placed in order to identify and honor the places of the martyrdom of Adriatic Italianity perpetrated by the "Titini". Recognizing that in the lands of the eastern Adriatic there is a centuries-old Italian presence also means asking for the strengthening of legislative protections for our native compatriots, starting with the extension of bilingualism from Istria to Fiume and Dalmatia, to arrive at the protection of monuments that testify to the roots of Italianity, passing through the teaching of Italian in schools.

Following the example of the cordial relations between Rome and Ljubljana, we hope that the dialogue with Zagreb can also be given new development, taking up the spirit of the Concert at the Pula Arena in 2011 in the presence of Presidents Josipović and Napolitano and hoping for the establishment of a new mixed commission for the study of Italian-Croatian relations in the twentieth century.