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The "special situation" of the external relations of the Republic of San Marino in recent times
L. Zonzini
University of San Marino,
Palazzo Begni, Contrada Omerelli, 31 — 47890, San Marino
For citation: Zonzini L. The "special situation" of the external relations of the Republic of San Marino in recent times. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. International Relations, 2022, vol. 15, issue 3, pp. 262-274. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu06.2022.303
Starting from Declaration no. 3 on Article 8 of the Treaty on European Union, addressed to small-sized European States, this essay intends to investigate, from a historical point of view, the "special situation" of the external relations of the Republic of San Marino. For geographical reasons, these events are combined with San Marino's particular situation of being an enclave in the Italian territory, from which specific and ever-changing relations with Italy derive. Geography has always marked the Republic's external relations. In the light of the historical period of reference and the interlocutors with whom the Republic came into contact, this essay seeks to demonstrate the conditions imposed by geography, but also the opportunities that enabled it to "go beyond" such geography, contrary to what imposed by its physical characteristics. Drawing mainly from San Marino historiographic sources, and thanks to the results of archive research carried out, the historical reconstruction aims at reconstructing the main bilateral events between San Marino and Italy during the long period before Italian Unification. Subsequently, the most significant events and specificities of the equally long period of the Italian State's building are highlighted, including the events of the Italian Risorgimento and the most important facts of the early years of the Italian Republic. Finally, when dealing with the start of the European integration process, some specific initiatives taken by the Republic of San Marino to investigate particular aspects of Declaration no. 3 are addressed.
Keywords: geography, history, San Marino, Italy, European Union. Introduction
A number of policy statements is attached to the Final Act of the Intergovernmental Conference, which adopted the Treaty of Lisbon. These statements include Declaration no. 3 on Article 8 of the Treaty on European Union, which recognises the specificities of small-sized countries. In particular, it declares that "The Union will take into account the particular situation of small-sized countries which maintain specific relations of proximity with it".
Within such legal framework, this essay avoids addressing political and diplomatic issues related to the current period of negotiations for the conclusion of an Association Agreement between the EU and the three small States Andorra, Monaco and San Marino. Its purpose is to study the "special situation" of the Republic of San Marino from the point of view of its external relations, by focusing on its bilateral relations with Italy, in light of the geographical location of the two countries, as San Marino is an enclave of Italy. Geography has always marked the external relations of the Republic.
© St Petersburg State University, 2022
Based on Reinhart Koselleck's practice of conceptual history — according to which historical time undergoes qualitative changes starting from events that modify the epochal framework [1] — the most significant historical moments of these inextricable and often ambivalent political and diplomatic relations between San Marino and Italy will be reconstructed through a historiographical research, considering that San Marino sources are not yet sufficiently disseminated abroad.
Also drawing on some geographical research approaches, according to which the geographical element is not only to be considered as statically established but also in its relational and ambivalent nature, this essay tries to demonstrate the conditions imposed by San Marino geography, but also the opportunities which, contrary to physical determinism, enabled the stakeholders to "go beyond" such geography. Attention is paid to the implications, in the long term, of a changing geography, which became more stable with the Unification of Italy, at the end of a long pre-unification period, including the events of the Italian Risorgimento, as well as the most important facts of the of the first few years of the Italian Republic. This coincided with the process of European integration and with a favourable context for initiatives, which led to San Marino's participation in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and its membership in the main multilateral international organisations. In order to bring out an apparently hidden dimension of the Declaration of the European Union, this essay considers the condition that San Marino acquired in the same period, namely that of being an enclave of the then European Community.
As in the case of the Little Prince, when he arrives on the sixth planet inhabited by a geographer who "receives the explorers, asks them questions and notes down what they recall of their travels", this essay will fill in the data and elements with the Republic's explorers: local historians and scholars, but also documentary sources in a language other than Italian and some others sources (sometimes not yet published) from the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The aim of the next section is to focus on the external geography of the Republic of San Marino before the Italian Unification, while the third section will identify the main changes, as well as the recurrent stabilities, in the relations between the two Republics, where they will combine with the start of the European integration process. Finally, in the fourth section, some assumptions will be made on the Declaration mentioned at the beginning, from which further research activities and renewed relations among the partners involved could arise.
The special external geography of the Republic
of San Marino before the Unification of Italy
The external relations of the Republic — understood as the external side of its tradition of independence and "everlasting freedom" — could not but be influenced by its special geography, as well as by the various changing interlocutors with whom it came into contact. In its geographical condition as an enclave of Italy, San Marino has always had essential external relations with the neighbouring Italian territory, even well before the Unification.
According to Napoleon, a country's politics is shaped by its geography [2], as if he was tempted to crystallise an immutable geography of international relations that depends
on cartographic reason, the mediation of which has led to its representation on a plane surface rather than on the terrestrial sphere. Indeed, since the modern era, the world has been transformed, according to Franco Farinelli, into the face of the earth, even though this reduction of the Earth from a sphere to a mere plane surface had occurred even earlier with the clash between Ulysses and Polyphemus, when space was invented [3; 4]. It is no coincidence that, during Napoleon's Italian campaign, Serge Victor was at his side with the task of establishing the new borders of Italy, thus betraying, according to Giacopini, the revolutionary ideals of the Enlightenment [5]. Geography influences present global relations among States in a very fluid manner, since it represents a known element of the powers that compete for hegemony in the global world [6]. Geography is by its nature a relational category: since absolute space does not exist and is always relative, it depends on what phenomena are considered and what tools are used to construct a geographical representation1. To use the words of Tim Marshall to describe the geopolitical routes of the new international order characterised by several elements of instability, geography can be seen as a prison, but also as a chance [7]. This ambivalent nature of geography may prove useful in the in-depth study of the Republic's international affairs, coinciding with important historical events.
Focusing on the 19th century, worth recalling is that, prior to the Unification of Italy, after the end of the Signorias in the Romagna region, San Marino became an enclave of the Papal State. This also explains the importance of the principle of Nemini teneri2, which was affirmed in the medieval period. When the Church extended its dominion over the Duchy of Urbino on the death of Francesco Maria II della Rovere, the two parties entered into an agreement in 1603, later ratified in 1628 by Pope Urbano VIII. The relationship with the Papal State was rather problematic. Indeed, San Marino could enjoy a certain autonomy3 but not external independence [8, p. 73 et seq.; 9] apart from the specific historical episode of the Republic's occupation by Cardinal Giulio Alberoni (1739). Among the historio-graphical theories that explain Alberoni's episode [10, p. 22; 11, p. 108], according to Luigi Lotti the fact that the privileges granted by the Papal State were not temporally defined — unlike the privileges granted by the Duchy of Urbino — made the people of San Marino aware that they could claim their independence. The intervention was triggered by the changing balances in Europe and the danger that San Marino might become a bridgehead with the progressive establishment of Austrian hegemony in the 18th century. This translated into reality when the new government of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany claimed rights in the fiefs of Carpegna, Scavolino and Montefeltro [9, p. 21 et seq.; 12, p. 287-290]. Following this episode, the new awareness of San Marino people remained theoretical and without major changes until the arrival of Napoleon. However, given the considerable influence of the geography of external power relations, that awareness could perhaps play a role in the subsequent historical events, considering the episodes that, after Napoleon's Italian campaign, wisely managed by Antonio Onofri [10, p. 24; 13], marked the Italian Risorgimento and led to the Unification of Italy. Referring back to a reflection by Pietro Franciosi at the beginning of the 20th century on Napoleon's episode, Luca Gorgolini be-
1 By comparing Mercator's map with Arno Peters' one, it is possible to note the considerable cartographic differences with regard to the image of the world depicted on the map.
2 Freedom understood as "not having to depend on anyone", but also "not being beholden to anyone".
3 This autonomy was also recognised by the King of Naples and the other Italian princes. For the Holy See, the ban on international relations was an insurmountable limit.
lieves that, between necessary prudence and loyalty, San Marino oligarchy's behaviour played the role of stabiliser of a situation that could have easily overwhelmed it. In those circumstances, the Republic played in the eyes of the French the role of mediator "between Napoleon's representatives and the communities of Montefeltro, rather reluctant to surrender to the invaders who had put an end to the Papal government there" [14, p. 13].
In the research conducted by Paola Magnarelli, aimed at investigating not only the transformations of the small Republic but also at including them in the process of initial transformation of its main interlocutors (first the Papal State and then Italy), she describes the intuition of San Marino authorities in attributing to the Republic some qualities of the incipient spirit of the Risorgimento. Also in this case, in the light of Magnarelli's research, San Marino's history can be better understood if it is considered with respect to the geographical dynamics of the Republic's relations. Indeed, it has always been connected with events and ruling groups outside its borders, changing and negotiating but without distorting the sense of its historicity: "The Republic has always thought of itself in these relational terms — and perhaps it could not have been otherwise — at the very time it was loudly affirming its autonomy" [15, p. 55-56].
The escape of Garibaldi, who was hounded by the Austrians, caused a further stiffness of the papal authorities, who accused the Republic of being too lenient with refugees and revolutionaries. Therefore, the papal authorities decided, together with the Austrian troops, to invade the territory in search of suspects present in the Republic, which was characterised by great instability [16, p. 166]. These internal episodes were due to the clash between conservatives and progressives (inspired by the Risorgimento, especially by Mazzini), which resulted in the victory of the progressives and the convening of the Arengo in 19064.
Some recent studies conducted by Buscarini show the Republic's proactive attitude towards the behaviour of the papal authorities with respect to the consequences of Garibaldi's episode [17]. San Marino considered the change of regime in France, and the rise to power of Louis Napoleon, as a protection against the interference of the Papal State. Thanks to the correspondence between the Captains Regent and the Emperor, the Republic of San Marino managed to establish its own Consulate in France and to accredit Giovanni Carlo Paltrinieri as Consul. This "defacto qualified him as the protagonist of the external policy of San Marino from 1854 to 1860" [17, p. 317]. The country also seconded to Turin a diplomatic official "able to act to its advantage, almost foreseeing in some way the role that the Savoy family would play in the Italian Unification" [18]. The Consul in Paris and the Chargé d'Affaires in Turin lobbied London, Vienna and the other European courts in favour of San Marino at a very delicate moment in history.
The Unification of Italy and its ambivalent relations with San Marino
San Marino welcomed the Unification of Italy since it marked the end of the temporal power of the Church. Indeed, from a geographical point of view, the Church not only constituted a serious danger for the Republic, but it confined it within its "protected" enclosure. With the Italian Unification, San Marino was included in the "heart of Italy". The 1862 Agreement with Italy is decisive for the recognition of the country's independence.
4 Considered by Norberto Bobbio as the "peaceful revolution of San Marino" and by Carlo Malagola as a "serious, peaceful revolution, worthy of the people who made it".
Suffice it to consider Cardinal Alberoni's words on the occasion of the events occurred in the late 18th century regarding San Marino's "superstition of freedom" [19], understood as a vain claim to autonomy and independence. From a legal point of view, this Agreement and the subsequent integrations that San Marino authorities successfully concluded constituted a formal recognition of the country's independence, although the concept of protective friendship was included in the Agreement. According to Maria Antonietta Bonelli, this was an attempt to notify San Marino's sovereignty abroad, thus experimenting a sort of trade-off between consolidation of bilateral relations5 and boosting of multilateral ones, in the belief that the country's international involvement could provide it with an increased weight in the negotiations with neighbouring Italy [20]. Although at first San Marino aimed at consolidating the new geography of relations with Italy, it later did not hesitate to establish relations with third States, especially in the field of extradition (with Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States of America) [20, p. 56]. In the multilateral field, it joined the Rome-based International Agricultural Institute in May 1908, four years later the International Radio Telegraph Convention of Berlin, and the following year the Universal Postal Union.
From the Italian Unification onwards, a sort of osmosis was established between the two interlocutors. This was favoured by San Marino, which was interested in improving the recognition achieved and maintaining the autonomy of its institutions. This is demonstrated by its investments for the construction of the Government Building in 1894 and for the renewal of the State Archive [21, p. 51 et seq.], which required a constant effort to find the necessary funds for its effective implementation6. The first local tourist guide was published in the same period. These operations in honour of republican virtues were flanked by the promotion of the "traces of Italy in San Marino" as described by Davide Bagnaresi [22, p. 186]. Disagreements continued7, although they were mostly due to the country's tradition of hospitality [23, p. 134], and to another extent to certain ideas of the Italian authorities regarding San Marino system, with particular attention to public security, currency, relations with third countries, taxation and finance [23, p. 126].
Beyond the legal elements and their important transformations, which imposed limits on its foreign policy8, it is interesting to understand first of all why San Marino remained excluded from the Italian Unification process. According to foreign scholars' theories, this exclusion was a reward for the Republic's support to the Italian Risorgimento struggle [24, p. 223; 25, p. 155], also taking into account the voluntary participation of some of its citizens in the revolts. In a recent speech on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Italian Unification, Valentina Rossi reconstructed the main concerns of San Marino authorities with regard to external events from the Captains Regent's correspondence [26]: first of all, the constant attention to publications appearing in Italy and beyond the Alps to counter the spread of erroneous representations of the Republic; then the creation of a diplomatic corps in order to establish additional contacts and attract the goodwill of many external personalities; finally, the granting of citizenship and honours. Valentina
5 Antonietta Bonelli defines the relationship with Italy as essential in relation to the aspects of necessity deriving from the enclave situation.
6 Francesco Chiapparino spoke of "Symbolic Capital".
7 In order to enforce the Agreement on good neighbourhood and not to patrol the borders, Italy establishes the Italian Consulate with that specific task.
8 With regard to consular and diplomatic relations, the 1897 Additional Agreement recognised the Republic's right of representation at consular level only, and extended it later. See paragraph 4 below.
Rossi also recalls that, immediately after the Italian Unification, San Marino Government decided to grant its citizenship to Giuseppe Garibaldi and Abraham Lincoln. Consulting the archives of the US State Department, Paolo Rondelli includes this last initiative within a broader diplomatic political strategy, which was aimed at the subsequent request for a loan to reduce its dependence on Italy [27].
In addition to San Marino's attention to the outside world, which started around the time of the Unification of Italy, another element characterising foreign policy, which has not yet been fully considered by historiography, is the commitment of its authorities to set up Consulates, not only in the Italian territory. These decisions are only partly justified by the presence of San Marino citizens abroad, namely in consideration of the main destinations of its emigration9. While in some cases, such as in the United States, France and Belgium, the high number of citizens who started to emigrate in the last decade of the 1800s, led San Marino authorities to establish consular offices10, in other cases this is not justified [23, p. 284]. In Tunisia there seem to be other reasons. Guido Bellatti Ceccoli accurately points out some of these reasons, drawing inspiration from the Mediterranean networks created by Jews, Armenians, Muslims (Arabs, Turks, etc.) and Eastern Christians, which also involved the Republic and its diplomacy [28]. Thanks to the latter, again according to Bellatti Ceccoli's conclusions following his research, San Marino managed to have an Italian and not a French Consul appointed in Tunis.
With the advent of Fascism in Italy and San Marino, the bond between the two States became more symbiotic [29] and the increasing number of new consular offices of the Republic, such as the case of Canada, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Rotterdam and Montevideo [30], probably reflected a changed situation in terms of collaboration and cooperation also on the part of Italy, which did not feel threatened by this type of San Marino activ-ism11. Further research will investigate this aspect, which has not yet been fully explored. Other unusual events also occurred, despite the formal prohibition provided for by the Agreement between Italy and San Marino [23, p. 537], for example the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Sovereign Order of Malta (1935) and the similar attempt — in this case with the establishment of a legation — with the Holy See (1926).
Worth examining is also the rescue of the Jews in San Marino. This reinforces the idea of its authorities to maintain an attitude which, on the one hand, did not bother the Italian authorities, who requested explicit information on the presence of the Jews and on the controls on the persons entering the country, but which, on the other hand, guaranteed protection from extermination [31]. Worth noting is the delay [32, p. 626] in adopting the measure on marriage and in defence of the race dated 30 September 1942, which was intended to take a diplomatic position with respect to Italy, but which was "de facto never actually applied" [33, p. 95]. Furthermore, besides protection provided to the Jews by Angelo Donati, San Marino Consul General in France, it is sufficient to consider the role played by Ezio Balducci who, after the fall of Fascism in Italy and San Marino, returned to the Republic from exile following the conflicts with the Gozi group. Despite his background, Balducci became a centrist exponent and, on 23 November 1943, he was heard
9 At the end of the 19th century, the main destinations of San Marino emigrants were the United States, Brazil and Argentina. Subsequently, they changed, also as a result of US restrictive measures.
10 The same seems to apply to the relations with Uruguay (1877) and Brazil (1891).
11 The Archive's Protocol of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (hereinafter ASSAE) contains some documents for example on the establishment of the Consulates in Kobe (A242) and Constantinople (A261).
by the Wehrmacht in Rimini. He was expressly asked to stop the reception of "people of the Jewish race", who were considered enemies of the Republic of Salo. He replied with a "wonderful lie" [31, p. 71, 72].
Furthermore, and this is another hypothesis to be verified through specific research, some foreign policy initiatives of San Marino prior to the advent of Fascism denote an attitude in favour of Italy. From the documents contained in the State Archive (hereinafter ASRSM), two episodes are particularly relevant, without any pretensions to reaching hasty conclusions. Reference is made, for example, to San Marino's support for the restoration of Montenegro's independence, whose highest authority, Nicholas I Petrovic-Njegos, decided to change his initial favourable attitude towards the experimental union among Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. On 5 February 1921, the Captains Regent addressed a letter, also signed by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Elena of Savoy, Queen of Italy and wife of King Victor Emmanuel III of Savoy, daughter of King Nicholas I of Montenegro and sister of his successor to the throne, considered a "worthy and august daughter of the black mountains"12. A few years later, San Marino also recognised the Kingdom of Albania through a specific decision adopted by the Great and General Council on 15 December 192813. Worth recalling is that Ahmet Zogu, even before his coronation as Mbret (King), had established strong alliances with Italy and had laid the foundations for its influence in the region. Further research could reveal the reasons for San Marino's support to Italian foreign policy initiatives in other similar historical events, such as the Italian colonial adventure in Ethiopia [34, p. 198-201; 35, p. 489-490], in order to understand any possible related implications on bilateral relations with Italy.
A comparison between the two Republics
The relations between the two Republics could not but be affected by the political climate of the years following the Second World War and by the specific political and institutional processes undertaken by San Marino and Italy. The ideological and political distance between the two Governments increased with Italy's accession to NATO in April 1949. This distance became even greater with the onset of the Cold War, when the legitimacy of "San Marino case" disappeared with the breakdown of the anti-fascist agreement among the USA, UK and USSR. San Marino situation after the Second World War, characterised by an economy paralysed mainly by the damages and hygiene, water and food supply problems caused by the war, was aggravated by the financial issues arising from Italy's late payment of its annual transfer to the Country.
The 1957 internal events and the previous ones marked a turning point in the relations between the two interlocutors. For some scholars, these events correspond to a "symbolic Civil War" [36, p. 17], while for others to a "miniature Cold War" (Sabbatucci Severini), in which national and international aspects are intertwined [36, p. 254 et seq.]. The subsequent installation of a centre-right Government greatly contributed to normalising relations with Italy. From that moment onwards, San Marino pursued a development model centred on the integration of its economy into the Italian and European economic circuits. The new geography of reference was more functional in solving some diplomatic issues inherited from the previous period. In 1961, San Marino obtained compensation
12 ASRSM, ASSAE, Position A032, Document no. 6, 1921.
13 ASRSM, ASSAE, Position A243, Document no. 6, 1928.
for the damage suffered by the British Royal Air Force during the bombing of 26 June 1944. By consulting the Foreign Office Archives, Valentina Rossi retraced the steps which, from the original request dated 24 November 1944, had marked the difficult relationship between San Marino and the United Kingdom, inevitably affected by the dysfunctional geography mentioned above [37].
Foreign policy vis-à-vis Italy was highly successful. After several years of negotiations, and thanks to the Additional Agreement of 10 September 1971 to the 1939 Agreement, the concept of protective friendship was eliminated, while in the Additional Agreement of 6 March 1968 the parties had already envisaged the possibility of establishing their own diplomatic representation in the other State. Other important agreements were concluded, such as on trade and social security. These agreements, which cover key aspects of the bilateral relationship, were subsequently revised and supplemented. These were followed by other agreements, such as the one on monetary matters and on the State television, and some disagreements arose (with regard to economic and tax issues), which can be considered as part of a normal debate deriving from the unavoidable condition of San Marino as an enclave. This confirms an ever essential relationship with Italy, which is constantly evolving also according to external circumstances [38].
At a multilateral level, the re-established relationship with Italy encouraged San Marino to actively participate, within the group of neutral countries, in the CSCE since 1971, until the Helsinki Final Act [39], in the Charter of Paris, and subsequently in the OSCE, as evidence of its commitment to international détente, peace and cooperation. Its interest in the CSCE allowed San Marino to test its negotiating skills for subsequent multilateral engagements, which could preserve the country's neutrality, moving towards Central and Eastern Europe (Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria) and as far as China, with which relations were established in 1971. In 1985, San Marino concluded with China an agreement for the mutual abolition of entry visas [40]. On 17 October 1974, the country joined UNESCO. The 1980s were marked by a series of diplomatic successes, also favoured by the preceding decolonisation process and the changing attitude of the UN towards small States [8, p. 159]: the country's accession to ILO (in 1982), to the Council of Europe (in 1988, and two years later it held the six-month Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers), as well as to the United Nations (on 2 March 1992) and to the IMF (in September 1992) [24, p. 233 et seq.]. Over the last decades, the international activity of San Marino has progressively consolidated. This confirms the importance of its active neutrality [41, p. 233 et seq.], aimed at supporting democracy and respect for human rights.
To restrict the boundaries of the survey carried out, one aspect emerges that is still little studied by historiographers: the EAEC and EEC Treaties were signed in Rome on 25 March 1957 and entered into force on 1 January 1958. With the birth of the European common market and the affirmation of "European peace", the country's geography of reference was enriched: in addition to being a territorial enclave of Italy, San Marino became an economic enclave of the European Community. From that moment onwards, its special relations now also included those (not) regulated with the then European Community. Indeed, many years passed before an agreement was reached that settled the situation inherited from the end of the Second World War. Meanwhile, the relationship with the Community started to become trilateral. On the one hand, the Community unilaterally included San Marino in the customs union, by virtue of the free trade area estab-
lished in the 1939 Agreement14, on the other hand, the provisions of the 1974 Agreement on social security with Italy largely reflect the relevant acquis15. These agreements show a trend that will become quite evident with the creation of the internal market (through an increasing free movement of production factors) envisaged by the 1986 Single European Act and the transfer of exclusive competences from Italy to the Community in some matters regulated by the 1939 Agreement. This situation risked leaving San Marino without a precise legal framework. Consequently, starting from the official visit of the President of the Commission of the European Communities Gaston Thorn to San Marino on 18 September 1983, negotiations were started in order to reach a bilateral agreement capable of "regulating and defining on a precise legal basis the anomalous relationship between our Republic and the European Economic Community" [42, p. 23 et seq.]. The impetus for further agreements was provided by the transformation of the original Community. With the Maastricht Treaty, the economic and monetary policy was also communitarised and a process of a closer union was started. A clause was included in the Treaty to safeguard the monetary agreements with San Marino, in anticipation of the introduction of the single currency16. The history of the relations, from a legal point of view, between San Marino and the European Union confirms the important intermediation role played by Italy, as in the case of the negotiations for the first Monetary Agreement in 2000, which was then renegotiated and concluded in 2012. In this regard, some official speeches held on the occasion of the Ceremony of Investiture of the Captains Regent are significant [43].
These speeches underline the relationship with Republican Italy and "the alternation of contrast, harmony and shared action in the international arena" [38, p. 164]. Moreover, they bring to light some concerns raised in the previous years by San Marino authorities in their relations with the European area, the foreign policy strategies of the Governments in office and the presence of transnational networks built by the country around issues deemed relevant. These networks bind the Republic to the destiny of Europe, not only at an economic and political level, and bring to light another special feature of San Marino, in accordance with the Declaration mentioned at the beginning of this work, namely its "European tradition", to which it may be worth dedicating much more in-depth research. This tradition can be found in many areas (from art, to philately and culture).
With regard to the institutional dimension, worth recalling are the following speeches by some European personalities, who addressed the EEC from San Marino. On 1 April 1969, Giuseppe Petrilli — at that time an executive of IRI (Institute for Industrial Reconstruction) — promoted the contribution that San Marino can provide, thanks to its participatory democracy, to a "Europe of the Regions". In his opinion, the EEC could take on this role in the reorganisation of global spaces. The President of the Council of Europe Lujo Toncic Sorinj, who delivered his Official Speech on 1 October 1971, invited to consider and support the involvement of San Marino in the integration process. On 1 April 1979, Altiero Spinelli delivered the Official Speech in the run-up to the first elections of the European Parliament. He reflected on the particular situ-
14 Regulation no. 1496 of 27 September 1968, which, although envisaging the same obligations as for the other States, did not provide San Marino with the same benefits [42].
15 Directorate for European Affairs (2019), Tabella di comparazione tra la Convenzione del 1974 e l'acquis europeo in materia di sicurezza sociale, San Marino [unpublished report].
16 Declaration no. 6 annexed to the Treaty on European Union.
ation of the Republic and considered it de facto fully integrated in the customs union and the Common Agricultural Policy. In the new millennium, San Marino has progressively included some international authorities (such as Ban Ki-Moon) among the Official Speakers. As can be read on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the "European tradition" of the Republic can "explain the cooperation presently in force and highlight the main lines of the process of greater integration aimed at the future association with the European Union" [44; 45]. However, it may go as far as to radicalise the concept of proximity expressed in the EU Declaration, thus allowing to discover a shared past, as we have tried to reconstruct in the brief geography of the international relations illustrated above. This past is interconnected with that of the other European States and peoples, since the Risorgimento and the Fascism, the Second World War and the process of European integration, briefly considered in the specific historical and geographical situation of San Marino, had significant repercussions in other territories and States of Europe.
A renewed geography of San Marino's external relations?
Minister Luca Beccari has recently re-established an important tool for information and knowledge concerning the Republic's international activities. The title chosen for the new magazine is emblematic: D'Identita, namely an identity that opens up to possibilities and remains apparently unfinished. Dialogue, on which the Republic has focused its most recent foreign policy (including intercultural and interreligious dialogue, considering one of the priorities of San Marino's six-month Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe: 15th November 2006 — 11th May 2007 [46]), based on its traditional policy of active neutrality, plays a favourable role in this regard. The two "Ds" thus form an ellipse with an evident spherical dimension, capable of recalling the feedback produced by every action (even diplomatic) in a complex and interdependent context.
On the basis of this projection and of the historiographic reconstruction made, the EU Declaration can be understood in its relational dimension, thanks to which the specificities mentioned are not exclusively due to the national context of San Marino, but should rather be considered in a broader sense, capable of embracing Italy and Europe. Further research will be able to analyse more in-depth the interconnections between the country's foreign policy actions and those of Italy, investigating the historical and institutional specificities of both interlocutors, which, in the case of Italy, have characterised its unification process and its subsequent consolidation, between continuity and transformation [47]. A similar theory could apply to "European foreign policy".
Beyond the size of the States involved and the characteristics attributable to the "the new multi-polar system of the twentieth century's second decade that is beginning to threaten the small States again" [48, p. 35], the folds of the EU Declaration conceal the perpetual interconnection between the political stakeholders of Europe — which could be understood as a result of non-comparable differences and insuppressible disagreements [49, p. 204 et seq.] — at the crossroads of processes that are difficult to separate. The special situation of San Marino could further enrich integration processes, since the country is already part of Europe in geographical, historical and cultural terms. Therefore, in the history of the Republic's international relations there are unexplored heritage and values
that even refer to the complex global (European) sphere17. In conclusion, it is interesting to take up the invitation made by the geographer to the Little Prince and opt for a visit to "planet Earth <...> It has a good reputation..."
Conclusions
On the basis of the historiographic work conducted, this essay has tried to reconstruct the external dimension of San Marino's perpetual freedom by illustrating the specific political vicissitudes of the Republic on the basis of historical events and the geographical context, which has constantly changed and evolved over time.
Also in consideration of the changing external political stakeholders with whom it has interacted, and by virtue of its essential relationship with Italy, the Republic has tried, depending on the circumstances, to find ways to overcome the constraints imposed by its "natural" diplomatic borders, based on its tradition of autonomy and independence.
During the Risorgimento, San Marino's diplomacy was active in defending the "reasons of the Republic", establishing relations with parties outside its "natural" reference framework. During the Italian Unification and the subsequent historical transitions up to the events of the post-World War II period, the drive to consolidate bilateral relations was enriched by the action to further promote relations within multilateral bodies.
Considering San Marino's activism in foreign policy during the 1920s (establishment of consular offices in countries other than Italy and where there were no San Marino emigrants; support to the restoration of the independence of Montenegro and to the recognition of the Kingdom of Albania), the empirical part of the research, conducted in the State Archive, has tried to provide some points for reflection, which would deserve further in-depth analysis for any implications in the bilateral relations with Italy.
In the comparison between the two Republics, precisely in the period between the start of the process of European integration and the conclusion of the first agreements with the European Community, San Marino continued to adopt a similar approach of consolidation of bilateral relations with Italy, achieving important diplomatic goals, and of promotion of external relations — taking into account the new status of enclave of the then European Economic Community. San Marino made this twofold effort by finding "traces of Europe" within itself. The so-called "European tradition" of San Marino finally made it possible to analyse more in depth the Declaration mentioned at the beginning of this essay. As demonstrated by the analysis of the official speeches delivered before the Captains Regent — which should be understood as a specific foreign policy tool, this tradition shows a hidden dimension, not immediately evident and open to new contributions, in particular those coming from the interconnection among the recipients to whom it is implicitly addressed.
Understood in an interdependent dimension, Declaration no. 3 on Article 8 of the Treaty on European Union could have a "pedagogical" function for the interlocutors involved. Within it, one could even glimpse a new perimeter of their relations, certainly not detached from the coordinates of natural geography, but capable of making the latter acquire a less cartographic, more relational and/or spherical nature: in brief, more suited to dealing with an increasingly complex and interdependent world.
17 The one already inscribed in the eye of Polyphemus, as Franco Farinelli puts it, while for an attempt to imagine a global constitution of the Earth, Luigi Ferrajoli could be considered [50].
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Received: May 28, 2022 Accepted: June 30, 2022
Author's information:
Lino Zonzini — PhD in History; lino.zonzini@esteri.sm
