Condemned to a Mediterranean destiny : l'Italia e l'accordo per la neutralità di Malta dell'estate del 1980

Based on a remarkable amount of primary sources from Italy, Great Britain, the United States and Malta, this essay examines the last stage, in the summer of 1980, of the negotiation of the agreement by which Italy undertook to guarantee Malta's neutrality to contain Soviet influence in the area. The essay examines the negotiation process which involved Rome and Valletta from the end of the Seventies to the beginning of the following decade, as well as the position taken by the main North Atlantic Treaty partners and the implications of the agreement on Maltese and Italian relations with Qaddafi's Libya. [Publishers' text].