By Giorgio Di Marzo
The President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano visited London on 12th and 13th October 2006. During his stay, not as a State Visit but as a Courtesy Visit, he met in Buckingham Palace Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II: an extremely cordial and simple meeting which, as the President has said, was very satisfying and gratifying.
President Napolitano has, furthermore, visited the very interesting exhibition At Home in Renaissance Italy – a review on the exhibition will be published on the next issue of ST*ART – at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and met the press and the representatives from the Italian community at the Residence of the Italian Ambassador in London.
The Italian President has, moreover, held an important lecture at the London School of Economics: “Is there a future for European Integration?”, where he has highlighted the close link between the strengthening of the European Institutions and the effectiveness of the action of the European Union inside and outside itself, and highlighted the role of the United Kingdom in this context.
According to me it is to be reported and underlined the following extract that shows like Italy has, in the person of its highest institutional office, as its first aim of international policy the improvement and completion of the process of the European integration.
“The history of European integration is undoubtedly a great success story. It tells of a Community which finally leaves behind the destructive rivalries of European powers and their bloody conflicts for hegemony. Of a continent which, out of the ravages of the Second World War, embarked on a process of integration and liberalization, laying the foundations for its own rebirth under the banner of social market economy. It speaks too of a family of nations which gradually spread its model of reconciliation and progress to all countries willing to join. It did so by promoting democracy, abolishing frontiers and fostering economic and civil advancement in all the nations which, one after another, became members of a project born in the 1950’s. It is the story of a Union which developed its own institutions and mutually-agreed rules together with a common market and a single currency and which aspires today to achieve growing weight and greater authority on the world scene by speaking with one voice.
By surveying the scale and extent of the progress made, what we should ask ourselves is not so much how the Union could have survived so many crises and changes but how it has been able to achieve so much. And yet our fellow citizens are showing signs of discomfort and concern. The low turnout at the polls in the 2004 European Parliamentary elections and the referendum results in France and The Netherlands on the Constitutional Treaty were clear signs.
Few periods in history underwent such rapid a transformation and such a profound upheaval of political, economic, social and cultural structures. Faced with the complexities of a growingly interdependent and increasingly hard-to-govern world, some of our fellow citizens are questioning the capacity of the European Union to provide adequate solutions to the pressing problems and challenges of daily life. They include unemployment, immigration, the environment, energy crises, terrorism and other threats to international stability.
Such concerns are particularly felt among young people who, for the first time – and after decades of uninterrupted economic growth – fear that their incomes will eventually grow more slowly than those of previous generations. It is true that such questions arise over issues that often lie beyond the objective responsibilities of the European Union and outside its competencies. And although national governments bear a fair share of responsibility for dealing with such problems, the European Union represents our most concrete hope for the future.
At a time when opportunities and dangers are global in scope, there can be no exclusively national solution. There are indications that over the next five years China’s GDP will continue to grow at between 8 and 10%; that the United States will grow at between 2 and 3%; and that the European Union’s will average a mere 2%. If those trends are confirmed through the subsequent decade, and if emerging economies succeed in achieving their potential, then after 2020 not a single European country would be entitled to sit in a multilateral forum like today’s. Only a United Europe can successfully take part in global competition and defend the interests of its Member States in trade negotiations with the rest of the world. (...)
Europe can only succeed by focusing on quality, advanced technology and innovation. We must invest in human capital and devote more resources to research. We must foster stronger scientific and cultural exchanges within the Union.
Europe used to be the cradle of modern science, the continent where the first universities were born. We cannot allow ourselves to forget it now that the issue of reinforcing the activities and the appeal of our research institutes and centres of learning becomes a vital priority.
The first universities were originally international in character since they were organized so as to promote collaboration between the various “nationes” that composed them. They arose thanks to the mobility of professors and students; had it not been for that Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge and Paris would have merely remained local schools. The very word “University” referred to a community of mentors and students from the widest reaches of our continent.
Well, in today’s Europe integration cannot be achieved without full freedom to study, travel and work unhindered. Cultural horizons expand in a space that has no barriers. Opportunities for civil and cultural growth arise, as do chances of training and employment for our youth. (...)
The warning which Jean Monnet issued in concluding his Memoirs in 1976 is more relevant today than ever:
We cannot stop when the whole world around us is in motion… Today our peoples must, just as our provinces did yesterday, learn to live together under freely-agreed rules and institutions if they wish to achieve the dimensions needed for them to progress and keep control over their destinies. The sovereign nations of the past no longer provide the right framework for resolving the problems of today”.
Grazie delle sue parole Presidente, e speriamo di rivederla presto a Londra.
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