«Today at the G7 Trade we will present the Bridge project: a way to reiterate that increasing trade is in our Italian interest and we diplomats are the first ambassadors of Italian growth in the world”. “We will listen to a presentation on the engineering marvel that will place this region at the centre of the world’s major logistics routes. The theme of infrastructure is central to global trade, to growth, to businesses”. – the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister had already announced this morning at the B7, the meeting organized by Confindustria on the sidelines of the G7 that opens today in Villa San Giovanni.
«Alongside the final declaration of the G7 – words of Tajani – I wanted to collect these priorities in a political text that I wanted to call ‘Calabria Declaration’ in which to summarize the spirit and substance of our work and outline the vision of an increasingly open, free and safe international trade, equal, a driver of growth, well-being and peace, the commitment to promote international trade”.
«Trade can increasingly become a tool for global dialogue» continued Tajani. From the G7, he added «a new message of peace and dialogue” after the attack on Trump. “We will engage on the fundamental issue of the environmental sustainability of trade. We want to make our economic systems safer”, addressing emerging global challenges such as artificial intelligence, a sector in which the EU “is at the forefront”.
The Deputy Prime Minister immediately after his speech at the Confindustria event reached the hotel that will host the summit of trade ministers and which will also be attended by non-EU partners: India, Brazil, Turkey, South Korea, Vietnam and New Zealand. The summit officially opened with the so-called “family photo”.
The German Vice Chancellor and Minister of Economy Robert Habeck explained the topics that will be addressed during the two-day event in Calabria. speaking to journalists.
“The G7 countries,” he said, “were founded on the idea of free trade and a level playing field, while the world as it is is developing in the opposite direction. We see low rules and low tariffs and closed borders for trade and goods almost everywhere in the world, and on the other side we see overcapacity and overproduction, subsidized production that is disrupting markets and really threatening and destroying industries. So there is a lot to discuss today, in terms of rules, the role of the WTO and the connection between the G7 and the outreach countries.” “Trade and the obstacles to free trade are becoming geopolitically important, US-China relations, as well as those between Europe and China are at the center of the global political debate,” Habeck stressed. With regard to WTO reform, “we need some kind of platform where disputes can be resolved and the problems we have in the world can be solved on a broader and more common basis.”
The ministers, immediately after, left Villa San Giovanni to visit the port of Gioia Tauroa large commercial platform overlooking the Mediterranean and the first Italian port for goods traffic, the Italian humanitarian initiative “Food for Gaza” will be presented in the large Calabrian terminal. In particular, a scanner will be presented, like the one recently sent to Cyprus, to strengthen and speed up security checks on containers with humanitarian aid that, through the maritime humanitarian corridor centered on the island, are destined for Gaza.
On the freedom of navigation and the centrality of ports for Italian politics, Tajani had expressed himself this morning at the B7.
“We managed to escape unscathed” from the crisis in Suez and the Red Sea, after the tensions caused by the Houthis and their attacks on Western merchant ships, with the European mission Aspides. “Even the data coming from the port of Gioia Tauro – the deputy prime minister underlined – demonstrate that the concerns about a collapse in the activities of Italian and European ports are proving excessive, because we have adopted the necessary countermeasures”.