Salvatore Scoca e la questione di Trieste nel secondo dopoguerra

This chapter examines Salvatore Scoca's role in addressing the Trieste question during the second post-war period, focusing on his contribution as Minister for the Reform of Public Administration in the Pella Government (August 1953 – January 1954). After outlining the historical background of the Trieste issue, including the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty, the establishment of the Free Territory of Trieste with its Zones A and B, and the diplomatic stalemate between 1948 and 1953, the chapter reconstructs Scoca's involvement following the Anglo-American declaration of 8 October 1953 concerning the return of Zone A to Italian administration. Drawing on parliamentary records, contemporary press sources (notably the Giornale di Trieste and Cronaca di Trieste), and the 1954 Sartori Memorandum, the study analyses the work of the ministerial commission chaired by Scoca, which was tasked with coordinating the juridical, administrative, economic, and financial measures necessary for the transition of powers. Particular attention is given to the legislative initiatives safeguarding the rights and continuity of service of public employees in the Free Territory, to the debates on the future administrative configuration of Zone A (including the regionalist hypothesis and the Free Port question), and to the structural fiscal and economic criticalities of the territory highlighted in the Sartori Memorandum. The chapter concludes by situating Scoca's approach within his broader vision of the State as an organisation aimed at maximising individual welfare, showing how the centrality of rights and the unitary dimension of the nation guided his work on the Trieste dossier, whose trajectory culminated in the London Memorandum of Understanding of 5 October 1954.