Page 17 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 17
Complex Gateways: The North Adriatic Port System in Historical Perspective
Our research has shown that a fragile equilibrium between coexist-
ence and competition emerged over time, producing a strange path to-
wards competitiveness. Usually, especially thinking about medium-size
seaports, the improvement of their commercial positionality is associat-
ed with their specialization and a closer symbiosis with their socio-eco-
nomic environment. The three North-Adriatic ports acquired the latter,
but failed in the former, especially during the post-war period.
Until the First World War, the ports of Trieste and Rijeka lived two
quite parallel evolutive paths inside their own environments (Austria
for Trieste, Hungary for Rijeka), even before the formal division of the
Habsburg empire in 1867. Trieste was the first to cross some thresholds
(the first regular steamship service, the first railway connection, the first
telegraphic lines), gaining some competitive advantages, but Rijeka fol-
lowed soon after, developing into one of the most important seaports in
the Eastern Mediterranean. Between the two World Wars, both ports be-
came Italian, sharing more problems than opportunities deriving from
the situation (Mellinato 2001). The framework changed again after the
Second World War, especially after the settlement of the so-called Trieste
question, in 1954.
During the period 1960–1990, the three North Adriatic ports devel-
oped in very different ways. Considering only the traffic not involving oil,
during those 30 years the port movements grew by 153% in Trieste, 471%
in Rijeka, and 3,970% in Koper, where clearly the figure is affected by the
very low level of its activities at the beginning. Starting almost from noth-
ing, by 1990 the port of Koper was able to handle 4,856,931 tons of goods
other than oil, while in the same year Trieste handled 7,750,851 tons. Since
the mid-Seventies, more than half of the non-oil movements in the port
of Koper were actually international, to or from Austria (40.96% of the in-
ternational movements in 1985), Czechoslovakia (28.20%), and Hungary
(23.97%) (Borruso 1996). Koper was able to substitute Trieste in serving
part of its traditional hinterland, creating de facto a quasi-system out of
the sum of the two ports sharing the same gulf. This system developed
in various forms of competition and collaboration after Slovenian inde-
pendence, finally forming the cornerstone from which in 2010 the North
Adriatic Ports Association was founded. Now NAPA brings together the
ports of Trieste, Venice, Koper, Rijeka, and Ravenna, aiming at the crea-
tion of that long-awaited systematization of the Northern Adriatic mar-
itime gateway region.
17
Our research has shown that a fragile equilibrium between coexist-
ence and competition emerged over time, producing a strange path to-
wards competitiveness. Usually, especially thinking about medium-size
seaports, the improvement of their commercial positionality is associat-
ed with their specialization and a closer symbiosis with their socio-eco-
nomic environment. The three North-Adriatic ports acquired the latter,
but failed in the former, especially during the post-war period.
Until the First World War, the ports of Trieste and Rijeka lived two
quite parallel evolutive paths inside their own environments (Austria
for Trieste, Hungary for Rijeka), even before the formal division of the
Habsburg empire in 1867. Trieste was the first to cross some thresholds
(the first regular steamship service, the first railway connection, the first
telegraphic lines), gaining some competitive advantages, but Rijeka fol-
lowed soon after, developing into one of the most important seaports in
the Eastern Mediterranean. Between the two World Wars, both ports be-
came Italian, sharing more problems than opportunities deriving from
the situation (Mellinato 2001). The framework changed again after the
Second World War, especially after the settlement of the so-called Trieste
question, in 1954.
During the period 1960–1990, the three North Adriatic ports devel-
oped in very different ways. Considering only the traffic not involving oil,
during those 30 years the port movements grew by 153% in Trieste, 471%
in Rijeka, and 3,970% in Koper, where clearly the figure is affected by the
very low level of its activities at the beginning. Starting almost from noth-
ing, by 1990 the port of Koper was able to handle 4,856,931 tons of goods
other than oil, while in the same year Trieste handled 7,750,851 tons. Since
the mid-Seventies, more than half of the non-oil movements in the port
of Koper were actually international, to or from Austria (40.96% of the in-
ternational movements in 1985), Czechoslovakia (28.20%), and Hungary
(23.97%) (Borruso 1996). Koper was able to substitute Trieste in serving
part of its traditional hinterland, creating de facto a quasi-system out of
the sum of the two ports sharing the same gulf. This system developed
in various forms of competition and collaboration after Slovenian inde-
pendence, finally forming the cornerstone from which in 2010 the North
Adriatic Ports Association was founded. Now NAPA brings together the
ports of Trieste, Venice, Koper, Rijeka, and Ravenna, aiming at the crea-
tion of that long-awaited systematization of the Northern Adriatic mar-
itime gateway region.
17
