“We must commit ourselves to peace. But it is necessary to refuse with determination insidious trade-offs: security at the expense of rights, absence of aggressive conflicts in exchange for submission, order through fear and repression, economic prosperity in exchange for subjection”. It is a categorical imperative, that Sergio Mattarella expresses himself before the diplomatic corps who arrived at the Quirinale for the reception on 2 June. How can you not read it also because of the ongoing war in Ukraine? No mention of the debate on the weapons to be sent to Kiev to strike on Russian territory, which Italy is against. But the phrase expresses the moral conviction, expressed several times, that “peace must be just”: precisely without bartering or giving in.
This year, Republic Day falls one week before the European elections. One thousand five hundred guests walk the flower-filled avenues of the gardens. The reception is the great secular ball of the Republic, it always photographs the era in which it falls. Elly Schlein he’s not here, he just held a rally in Milan. Giorgia Meloni arrives, fresh from a party demonstration in Piazza del Popolo. It’s almost summer. In Petrolium Pasolini it told about the Republic Day at the time of Saragatwith the powerful positioned around the president “according to his importance and political weight”.
Powerful electoral climate. Sergio Mattarella, after the appeals to vote in recent days, reiterates his ironclad Europeanism by stating that with “the vote we consecrate European sovereignty”. It is an idea diametrically opposed to the one that Meloni expressed this afternoon in front of his militants in Rome.
Many things have changed in these two years of melonism. Giorgia Meloni has given up the role of moderator and returned to her MSI origins. Mattarella asks the prefects for “the guarantee of the right to assembly and demonstration”. It seems like an obvious phrase but it isn’t. You recall that Republic Day implies “a call to responsibility”. You once again mention the struggle for Liberation, from which our freedom sparkles. We need to remember it, she says.
There is therefore an internal front. And here Mattarella reiterates the fundamentals of the Republic, of democracy, children of the Constitution.
Then there is the external front. Mattarella is worried about “the multiplication of situations of conflict and violence in our neighbourhood, from Ukraine to the Middle East to the Sahel. He denounces “Russia’s anguished arms race.” Referring to Israel and Palestine, he reiterates that it is necessary to start “a process that puts an end to the massacres and finally leads to a stable peace, with the full and mutual recognition of the two states of Israel and Palestine. We immediately reiterate the imperative to fully implement what was requested by the Security Council for the ceasefire, unconditional humanitarian access to the population of Gaza and the release of the hostages seized during the inhumane attack of 7 October”.
