After World War II, Trieste, Italy was de jure was an independent and diplomatically-recognized state, The Free Territory of Trieste, but, due to Soviet intransigence in agreeing to any civilian governor nominated by the other allies (US, UK, France), the territory was de facto under military occupation until the London Memorandum in 1954 made territorial awards to Italy and Yugoslavia. Sounds fairly straight-forward.
Apparently not. A local resident explained how some would prefer to return to military occupation than to be part of Italy. A Trieste independence movement maintains that the United Nations Security Council Resolution 16 which established the Free Territory was never revoked and therefore the Free Territory continues to exist de jure, therefore the 1954 territorial transfers were illegal. To further confuse, the 1975 Treaty of Osimo which finalized international boundaries was not signed by the Allies who made the territorial awards but Italy and Yugoslavia, the recipients.
Besides Trieste independence, the movement wishes to regain the territory awarded to Yugoslavia, now part of Slovenia and Croatia. Despite a digital presence and lots of sabre-rattling – a la those claiming the Republic of Texas still exists – the resurrection of the Free Territory of Trieste is not going to happen: the Security Council is too divided to make such a declaration, its unlikely the four Allies themselves could agree (Russia as the successor to the Soviet state), the European Union would vehemently protest, and more that my simplistic mind can’t comprehend.
Perhaps it’s the automatic opposition to the current Italian government regardless of party; perhaps it’s because Trieste was Hapsburg ruled for 550 years and feels drawn towards Austria; perhaps the independent movement feels that European deserves a new state or microstate (which technically may already exist). Regardless of reasoning and without truly understanding Italian politics, I’ll state with an unjustified certainty that this is never going to happen!
