During the Legislature that is now coming to an end, none of the successive governments has convened the Working Table between the Government and the Associations of Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian exiles, a body designated for what should be a constant comparison between the acronyms of the Adriatic diaspora and the Ministries.
We are aware that the instability of majorities, the succession of emergencies, from the pandemic to the energy crisis through the Ukrainian conflict, have required particularly significant government interventions. However, some of the issues for which the Exodus associations are still asking for a solution are merely symbolic or in any case not expensive, starting from the correct formulation of the personal data of those born in the Municipalities ceded to Yugoslavia in order to obtain the official awarding of the Gold Medal for Military Valor to the banner of the City of Zadar, through the planning with the Slovenian and Croatian authorities of a reconnaissance of the foibe, mass graves and burial places of Italians killed by the Yugoslav partisan militias.
Coming to much more complex issues, 75 years have passed since the signing of the Peace Treaty, which was followed by the Italian-Yugoslav agreements with which the assets of the exiles confiscated and nationalized by the communist regime were included in the share of compensation that Italy owed to Belgrade for war damages. In this way, the Italian State became a debtor towards its expropriated citizens, but the compensations were never calculated in a congruent manner and the few compensations that arrived were absolutely inferior to expectations. We expect the new government to intervene decisively and resolve this dispute, to put an end in a spirit of fairness to the injustice for which the damages of a war lost by all of Italy were paid by our fellow citizens robbed of their homes and their lands as if the mourning and suffering endured because of Tito's dictatorship were not enough.
Furthermore, on January 2023, XNUMX, Croatia will join the Schengen area and adopt the Euro, thus completing its membership in the community bodies. We hope that the new government will finally be able to request, also through the channels of common European belonging, compensation for the goods abandoned in the former Zone B of the never established Free Territory of Trieste, as provided for by the Treaty of Osimo between Italy and Yugoslavia, of which Slovenia and Croatia are successor States by territorial competence. In the case of goods for which there are no legitimate owners or their heirs, we reiterate the request that the corresponding value be allocated to a fund thanks to whose profits the activity of a Foundation dedicated to the study of the history, literature, art and traditions of Italianness in the Eastern Adriatic can be financed.
Last but not least, we recall how we have long been calling for the establishment of a Commission to study the Vergarolla Massacre, which occurred on 18 August 1946 after the war had ended, in a territory that was still Italian near Pola and which enjoys the bloody record of being the massacre with the highest number of deaths in the history of the Republic: it should be interpreted within the broader Italian and European context of the second half of the twentieth century.
In recent years our associations have carried out a fruitful collaboration only with the Ministry of Education (school competition February 10, national and regional training seminars, a summer school for teachers on the history of the eastern border) and unfortunately the same constructive relationship has not been possible with the other State Administrations. We hope that the Parliament, first and foremost, and the Council of Ministers that will take office after the elections will want to follow this virtuous model by finally listening to and satisfying legitimate and imperscriptible requests.

We trust that the parties can accept our appeal and share with the Associations of the Julian-Dalmatian diaspora a joint, cultural, strategic and synergic path, giving space in their programs to these requests of ours.  

Trieste, September 19, 2022  

Prof. Attorney Giuseppe de Vergottini
President of the Federation of Istrian Exiles Associations, Fiume and Dalmatians