In preparation for the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, the Permanent Representation of Italy to the OSCE in Vienna promoted the production of a book that delves into numerous historical aspects of a particularly important period in foreign policy. Thus was born the book ‘ITALIA-HELSINKI 50. Dall’Atto Finale di Helsinki del 1975 all’OSCE di oggi’ (Editoriale Scientifica, 2024) edited by Prof. Luciano Monzali and Amb. Stefano Baldi, which collects original contributions by various historians and diplomats. The volume is available free of charge in its digital version.
The commitment to maintaining an open dialogue with the Soviet Union and the bloc of communist states formed at the end of the 1940s was, alongside the three pillars of Italian foreign policy (the Atlantic Alliance, European integration and the Mediterranean-Middle East), a crucial theme of republican Italy’s international action.
The Italian Ostpolitik had its own important manifestation in the active participation of the Rome government in the diplomatic process that led to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, the birth of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and its progressive institutionalisation in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
This volume constitutes the first attempt at a comprehensive study of Italy’s role in the genesis of the Helsinki agreements and in the evolution of the CSCE and OSCE. On the one hand, it presents a series of historical analyses, also based on unpublished and never before used Italian documentary sources, which help to understand the main moments of pan-European cooperation from the 1960s to the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, underlining the importance of the Italian role. On the other hand, it brings together assessments and reflections of some of the most eminent Italian diplomatic personalities who devoted particular attention to and personally participated in the development of the Helsinki process.
The book is therefore a must-read to understand an important aspect of the most recent history of Italian foreign policy and, more generally, of the European continent.
Italy-Helsinki 50. Dall’Atto finale di Helsinki del 1975 all’OSCE di oggi is published in the series “Memorie e studi diplomatici” by Editoriale Scientifica.
Stefano Baldi, Luciano Monzali (eds.), Italia-Helsinki 50. Dall’Atto finale di Helsinki del 1975 all’OSCE di oggi, Editoriale Scientifica, Napoli, 2024, pp. 444, € 38,00.
