Trieste, July 11th, 2013. – Yesterday, the Free Trieste Movement held a sit-in at Trieste’s provincial Tax Court. The Court was discussion an exception regarding Trieste’s jurisdiction.

All previous exceptions were rejected without explanations, claiming they were either groundless or inadmissible. It would have been much easier for the Court to admit that it exercises the jurisdiction of the Italian Government in its role of temporary civil administrator of the Free Territory of Trieste. This is what the Italian Government is under its own laws, after all.

Administration does not mean impossibility to levy taxes, as long as taxation follows the laws of the Free Territory, is collected in a budget separate from Italy’s, and is not burned with the huge Italian public debt. A public debt that has certainly increased a lot since 1947, when the Treaty of Peace with Italy ultimately separated Trieste and Italy.

After paying the taxes of another State for 60 years, the people of Trieste are finally becoming aware of their rights, unlike the officers in charge of the Italian administration (what do they have to lose? Because right now they are losing a lot of things, eg. mission allowances!).

This stand for fair taxation is not in mere principle: we are talking about undue taxes forced not only on regular citizens, but also on small and big enterprises. Small businesses close, big businesses either invest somewhere else or leave Trieste. This means many jobs are lost, opportunities of social and economic development are lost, and this means youth forced to emigrate, and citizens drowning in poverty and desperation.

Not to mention the international Free Port: under the 1947 Treaty of Peace, that offers great opportunities of development and employment to the whole International Community, but right now it is suffocated for political reasons: just think about the attempted speculation against the Northern Free Port, or to the undue port duties.

The difference between the prompt re-establishment of Trieste’s fair taxation and the current crisis is significant: it is the difference between paying undue taxes or sailing towards the future Trieste deserves.