“Europe don’t sleep, your fate is closed in you.” Sergio Mattarella Puccini quotes, that of the Turandot and the challenges to which you cannot escape, in which you risk the neck bone but the defeat cannot be put in the budget. Cotec Symposium, Coimbra, by his side the king of Spain Felipe and the Portuguese president Rebelo de Sousa. Above all, however, there is Mario Draghiwho arrived with him yesterday and witnessed the long ceremony in which the head of state received a doctorate from the university, one of the oldest on the continent.
Draghi, today, to introduce the work of a symposium called, significantly, “a call to action”. The former Prime Minister does it, with sharp clarity. A strong and explicit commonality of views emerges in the end with the head of state. The duties crisis, explains Draghi, is literally a point of no return. And if in the short term you cannot ignore the commercial ties from Washington, in the long run it is impossible to imagine that things come back as before January 2025. Someone believes themselves free and far away, overseas. But there is more: «The internal political fragmentation and weak growth has made an effective European response more difficult. The most recent events represent a breaking point. The massive use of unilateral shares to resolve commercial disputes and the definitive exhaustion of the WTO have undermined the multilateral order in a difficult way to reversible ». In short, a new order must be rethought, in which Brussels is ready and present. And it is clear: “If Europe really wants to depend less on US growth, it will have to create it alone”. Create wealth and growth, produce autonomy, obtain more safety and independence.
In Draghi’s words there is almost a program, which ranges from artificial intelligence to a reflection on wages (which are to be supported, because for too many years they have remained at the pole and the whole question is affected and therefore the same growth). However, a particular reflection is dedicated to the political consequences of the war in Ukraine.
“We consider the defense,” asks Draghi to his interlocutors, “for at least a decade the growing threats to our eastern borders have been evident. Russia does not hide from considering us an enemy to weaken through a hybrid war ».
Standing on stage, a tenor has just intoned the most famous air of Puccini’s Turandot, the one in which Calaf challenges Turandot by giving away his own head. Ardimento against the displacement oriental whim: in the moments in which the head is at stake it is impossible to hold back. So, no one sleeps. It also applies for these months of comparisons and clashes, challenges and uncertainties. “A little earlier the Romance we listened to could apply to our union,” notes the head of state. “It is necessary to put in place effective and at the same time ambitious measures”, he warns, citing “one, that in its topicality and urgency well exemplifies the consequences of the speech and the unjustified reluctance to proceed along the path of integration. The European common defense ».
“It is not difficult to imagine what the condition of the Union would be today, in the face of the changed geopolitical context, if we had chosen at the time to perform that leap in political quality in the integration process”, almost reproaches, “today we are late, on the run compared to the events and we must, consequently, warn its urgency”. You do not look at the past, you act on the future: it is a question of carrying a global project, in which competitiveness, growth, development and safety are many faces of the same diamond, now that what were once the superpowers have abandoned, not to say attacked, the old continent.
Meanwhile, the old continent? We, is the answer, “while this threat grew, we did little to strengthen our common defense” and now “with the withdrawal of the US security umbrella, we are realizing our weakness”. In short, he slept. Consequently, even here, in the immediate time, one cannot ignore this uncomfortable inheritance: “It could be too late to influence short -term events”. We will remain silent spectators, despite the undeniable war effort in favor of Kiev. On the other hand, “it is not too late to change the prospects for the next 5-10 years, if today we adopt the right measures to develop our industrial capacity in the defense sector and our strategic skills”. More technologies, more investments, more projects and above all more coordination between 27 military heads now called to think as if they were one. Europe, here is the road. There are “ideas of great relevance and interest”, comments Mattarella as soon as he takes the floor, “it is urgent, I would say a priority, that Europe acts, because being still is no longer an option”.
“Let’s consider the main emerging technologies, architraves of the new industrial revolution: from advanced robotics, to generative artificial intelligence, from quantum computers, to experiments for the production of clean energy, from biotechnology to airospace. Well, for each of them, The amount of investments and the robustness of the mechanisms necessary to implant and protect, even in Europe, solid nascent industries are such as to demand cooperations on a continental scale “asks Mattarella. And if so much of the Ukrainian crisis has ended directly in the bills of Italian businesses and families, “a strategy that plays the safety of supplies” becomes more than ever necessary “. This means “tightening agreements with reliable partners to ensure stable supplies, remaining open to international cooperation, as long as they are suffered by sufficient guarantees of mutual trust”. This is the premise that is essential for “a more competitive, technologically advanced and therefore safer Europe, capable of reducing its strategic dependencies but without affecting the basic canvas of an international order based on free trade”. It is a demanding challenge, yet, without underestimating the seriousness of the situation, we have a duty – as well as many good reasons – to remain optimistic “, concludes the president,” the union stands on solid foundations: a market economy open to competition and international exchanges; an independent central banks system; a stable and reliable legal framework; a conception of state of law firmly anchored to a convinced democratic tradition; active redistribution policies inspired by the principle of solidarity “. There is enough because the content intons, among the applause of the most demanding audience, a magnificent si acute.