Maria Luisa Berti

Ambassador Trichilo at the Northern Adriatic Study Day

(ANSA) - ROMA, 28 SET - The Italian Ambassador to Croatia, Paolo Trichilo, opened the proceedings of the conference “North Adriatic Study Day – Current Legal Issues,” at the invitation of the Faculty of Law at the University of Rijeka, which organized the event. Now in its eighth edition, the conference was held, as is tradition, entirely in Italian and brought together Italian and Croatian legal scholars, university professors, and experts who discussed legal issues of mutual interest. This year’s conference focused on minority rights and, in particular, on the 30th anniversary of the Treaty between Italy and Croatia on this subject, signed in 1996 by Foreign Ministers Lamberto Dini and Mate Granić. Thanks to the support of the embassy and the Faculty of Law at the University of Rijeka, speakers included Elia Boggia, senior advisor to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, who discussed the 1996 Italian-Croatian Treaty as a framework for understanding the OSCE’s commitment to conflict prevention. Also noteworthy were the presentations by Davide Rossi and Fabio Spitaleri of the University of Trieste, which focused, respectively, on the impact of the agreement on bilateral diplomatic relations and on the Treaty within the international and European context. One session of the conference, moderated by Sandra Winkler, a professor at the University of Rijeka, was dedicated to the issues of taxation and the mobility of cross-border workers, featuring a presentation, among others, by Michele Berti, president of the Italian-Croatian Interregional Trade Union Council of the Upper Adriatic. In his remarks, the ambassador emphasized the importance of the 1996 agreement, which grants significant rights to the Italian minority in Croatia, laying the groundwork for the development, over the past thirty years, of a fruitful collaboration between Rome and Zagreb aimed at highlighting the key role of their respective minorities in the excellent bilateral relations between Italy and Croatia. He then reaffirmed the commitment of the embassy and the Consulate General in Rijeka to continue working, including in collaboration with the Italian Union, to strengthen the essential role of the Italian minority in preserving and promoting the Italian language and culture in Croatia and in deepening the profound bilateral friendship, to which the Italian National Community adds significant value, a fact recognized in Italy at the highest institutional level. Read article...