The sixteenth Conference of Italian Ambassadors in the world opened at the Farnesina.
The appointment, scheduled until tomorrow, will constitute a moment of discussion on our country’s international action, with the participation of over 130 owners of Italian diplomatic offices abroad and numerous government ministers and foreign personalities, including the EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Commonwealth and Development, David Cameron, and the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken (by videoconference). The closure, tomorrow, will be entrusted to Tajani and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. L
It will be an opportunity to reflect on the role and tools available to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in support of the action to promote national interest and the value of dialogue, also in view of the Italian G7 presidency in 2024.
The work sessions, with Deputy Prime Minister Tajani, will focus on the main topics of international current affairs. First time, come on Artificial intelligence, Cybersecurity and the new frontier of security, will be attended by, among others, the Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini and the Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council Alfredo Mantovano. In the second session, on Mattei Planthe ministers of Agriculture and Education Francesco Lollobrigida and Giuseppe Valditare, the CEO of Eni Claudio Descalzi and the general director of Dis Elisabetta Belloni.
There will also be sessions on diplomacy for growth and on the management of crisis scenarios and the effects on migratory phenomenon, with the Ministers of the Interior and Defense Matteo Piantedosi and Guido Crosetto. Space also for issues of sustainability and ecological transitionwith the Minister of the Environment Gilberto Picchetto Fratin and the EU Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra. Finally, a reflection on the Italian presidency of the G7with speeches by the heads of British and American diplomacy David Cameron and Antony Blinken.
President Mattarella’s speech
“The challenges facing humanity place the survival of the planet at risk, starting from the consequences of the climatic condition, up to methods of warfare – which take us back to eras that have no right to repeat themselves – in which the people become hostages of the aggressive policies of their respective governments. To classify the Russian Federation’s attack on Ukraine as a mere regional dimension would be a capital mistake. Its destabilizing effects are felt in all corners of the globe and undermine international instruments of cooperation and dialogue “. Thus the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella.
“The claim of the re-emergence, in the third millennium, of the “imperial” logic is unacceptable. Even the ideological alibi of comparison/competition between systems based on opposing life projects no longer helps to support it. Only the logic of arrogance remains. Here the elementary reason for focusing on multilateralism for those countries – like Italy – which reject imperialist intentions and do not have the ambition of being anyone’s “satellites” but rather of cooperating, as equals, with all states and peoples of good will, also to govern globalization, increasing its coincidence with the perimeter of freedom and well-being. “The Middle Eastern crisis – explained Mattarella, speaking at the Conference of Ambassadors underway at the Farnesina -, with its bearing of hatred, has caused the re-emergence from its karst river also the phenomenon of anti-Semitism, which, today as yesterday, feeds on clichés and a distorted vision of history. Derivation of subcultures that resist time and reason, true “warehouses of hatred, never emptied of their toxic goods”, as Senator Liliana Segre recently defined them. These are messages that must meet with the clearest condemnation, without ambiguity, without convenient interpretations.”
“For 22 months the Ukrainian people have been acting as a barrier to this drift and, once again, it is the civilian victims who pay a high price. There is, here as in Gaza, the need to make the rules more stringent, even in war, of that international humanitarian law whose urgency emerged already with the Geneva Convention in 1864. It is unacceptable that, in armed conflicts of this century, attacks and reprisals are carried out which affect the defenseless civilian population. It is up to the international community to prevent new adventures to this policy of oppression which finds emulators in various situations and on several continents”.
“Like every human construction, the European Union is not perfect: it is a permanent construction site, to be supported daily with everyone’s work, uniting together resilience, firm clarity and patience, as necessary for the conclusion of the ongoing negotiations for the Stability and Growth Pact“.
“The widening and deepening of the mechanisms of economic and political integration are two closely connected aspects. For the European Union to be able to play an important role at an internal and international level, they must proceed hand in hand. This is a need which should lead us to increasing use of majority voting”.
Tajani: ‘Italy has once again become a protagonist in the world’
“This year, Italy has once again become a protagonist on the international stage, I think of what has been done in the Balkans and Africa, of all the action to reduce migratory flows by fighting traffickers with agreements with the countries of origin – so the minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani on the sidelines of the sixteenth Conference of Italian Ambassadors in the world at the Farnesina – I think of what we have done within the G7 and what we will do next year, because from 1 January we will have the leadership of G7. An Italy that wants to be a bearer of peace in the world, we are doing it in the Middle East”.
Italy has “firmly condemned the Hamas attack against defenseless victims which recalled the Nazi brutality of the Holocaust, but we also want Israel’s reaction to be proportionate, which spares the civilian population” in Gaza, he then explained the minister opening the XVI Conference of Ambassadors at the Farnesina, alongside President Sergio Mattarella.