US bases in Italy rest on a secret 1954 agreement with undemocratic decision-making

Evidence

Still, many in Vicenza ask how democratic the decision to build the Dal Molin base really was if the presence of U.S. bases in Italy rests on a secret 1954 agreement approved without the consent of the Italian parliament or the U.S. Congress. They ask whether the decision was really democratic if Italian and U.S. officials carried out their Dal Molin negotiations in secret, preventing any public debate at either the national or local level until after they had made an initial agreement. They ask whether a real democratic decision would violate Italian and European contract bidding regulations, as a regional court found. They ask whether a democratic decision would bypass an environmental impact assessment planned by the Ministry of the Environment, which the court also determined was required under national law. (In a leaked letter, a special commissioner responsible for overseeing the project acknowledged the environmental danger posed by the base and discussed ways to circumvent the environmental assessment because of its potential to “put the final decision in jeopardy.”34) And how truly democratic was it, many in Vicenza ask, if a foreign power—the United States—exerted what appears to be significant pressure on the Italian government to follow through with the agreement, regardless of what Italians really wanted? — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 938

Categorization

• QUESTION: A 1954 secret agreement governs US basing in Italy — worth investigating how this compares to basing agreements in other host nations like Japan, Germany, and Korea.