A Belated Friendship: Italian-Yugoslav Relations (1947-1990)

The Italian-Yugoslav relations in the post war period were dominated by the issue of Trieste, which took several decencies to solve in satisfactory manner for both parties. Even though the Osimo agreements put an end to the territorial dispute only in 1975, the cooperation between two countries developed more or less unhindered from 1960 onwards. The policy followed by Aldo Moro, on several occasion head of Italian Cabinet and/or Minister for Foreign Aff airs, was dictated by the necessity to aid and fortify Tito’s Yugoslavia which was seen as the barrier shielding Italy from the “people’s democracies” and their aggressive attitude demonstrated during the crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Th e development of economic and cultural relations between the two neighbours opened the way for the creation of the unique association, Alpe Adria, which reunited the regions with common history, disregarding their ideological differences. Thus, this kind of Italian diplomatic novelty proved out to be a first step towards EEC, not only for Yugoslav regions such as Slovenia and Croatia, but also for Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, ex “people’s democracies”