THE Italian flag and that of the Istria region flew at half mast outside the Trieste party headquarters of the neoFascist Alleanza Nazionale last week.
The mourning signs were a symbolic protest at the "association agreement" concluded on June 10th in Luxembourg between the European Union and Sloveuia, the former Yugoslav republic which shares a land border with Italy. Trieste is just a few kilometres from that border.
It has been no secret that the EU and US were keen to see Slovenia rewarded not only for the impressive economic and social progress made since declaring independence in 1991 but also for having stayed well clear of the warfare of the last four years in former Yugovslavia.
While Sarajevo suffered and Bosnia bled, Lubljana made money. The economic growth rate soared from -0.75 per cent in 1991 to just under 5 per cent this year.
The economy now meets two of the five celebrated Maastricht criteria for monetary union 70 per cent of Lubljana's foreign trade is with the EU.
Apart from a 10 day "war of independence" against the Yugoslav federal army in the summer of 1991, Slovenia has largely avoided direct involvement in the devastating ethnic conflicts which marked the break up of Yugoslavia.
Since its independence was formally acknowledged, firstly by the Vatican and then by the European Commumty, in January 1992, Slovenia's role in the Bosnian crisis has been one of nervous bystander albeit with an anti Serb bias.
For the "Istrian exiles", however, the agreement constitutes a major disappointment. The exiles are the modern day expression of the complicated history of Trieste, with its mixed Slovene and Italian hintland stretching into Istria, which is partly modern Croatia and partly Slovenia.
This is a much contested hinterland which in this eentary has passed from Austria Hungary (pre1914) to Italy (1919-1945) and then was largely incorporated into Marshal Tito's Yugoslavia (1945-1991).
Those exiles who protested this week claim to be war refugees (or the relatives of refugees) whose Istrian properties were confiscated by the Tito regime in 1945. Now they want either compensation or their properties back.
Many - if not all - of those Italians who lived in Istria between the wars were strongly pro Mussolini, pro Fascist. That attitude prompted fatal treatment from Tito, whose forces executed 4,768 Italian civilians from the area around Trieste in the months of May and June 1945 alone.
The former political alignment of the "exiles", however, has inevitably meant that it has been the post war neo Fascists, flrstly under "the banner of Movimento Sociale (MSI) and more recently as Alleanza Nazionale, who have promoted their seemingly lost cause.
When the neo Fascists finally got into government along with Mr Silvio Berlusconi in May 1994, one of the first moves of the newlyappointed foreign minister, Mr Antonio Martino, was to block Slovenia's request to the EU for "association" status, a request originally made in 1993.
This move might have kept Mr Berlusconi's major allies in government happy, but it led to vociferous cries of "foul" from the Lubljana government.
However, 10 months later and, after the December 1994 fall of the Berluscom government, this obstructiouist policy over Slovenia, was reversed by the new Foreign Minister, Ms Suzanaa Agnelli. In an address in March 1995 at a gathering of EU foreign ministers, she laid down the current two track Italian policy toward Slovenia.
In effect, Italy agreed to withdraw its block on Sloveuia's association agreement with the EU while retaining the right to continue pressing claims for war time compensation in an exclusively bilateral context. Put simply, Italy renounced the biggest stick available to it in its differences with Slovenia.
This was done not only to maintain promises made to the European partners concerning its term, as EU president, but also for an eminently practical reason. Namely, that Slovenia represents only part of the Istrian exile problem.
The other, much larger, part concerns Croatia. Meaningful dialogue with the Croats on the subject has yet to begin.
While the Italian foreign office ponders the Croatia issue and while the exiles in Trieste protest, the Italian government will point to the Slovenia agreement as one important achievement of its term as EU president. Most neutral observers would agree.