Wasted Opportunity? Italy and Central Europe at the End of the Cold War

The aim of this chapter is to describe the Italian role in the elaboration of a policy of pragmatic convergence towards the Eastern European countries of the Soviet Bloc during the last decade of the Cold War. As the less dogmatic communist regime in the region, Hungary played a pivotal role in the establishment of good working relations with Italy. This contribution examines the issue of bilateral cooperation from a broader, diplomatic and political perspective. After briefly summarising the international context, the paper focuses on the milestones of the gradual re-discover of Central and Eastern Europe by the Italian foreign policy through local initiatives like Alpe-Adria, and secondly on the decisive role Hungary played in the late Kádár era in the creation of regional networks such as the Quadrangular Initiative. The final part of the paper explains the complex set of reasons that made bilateral and regional cooperation efforts ineffective after the demise of the Soviet Union, and determined the overall failure of the Italian strategy of economic and political penetration into the post-communist region.