The way of thinking, the mentality, starts from daily life. They concern any context: the international one, the internal one of individual states, of every community, small or large. For every people it starts from its national dimension.
Leo He called for the need to disarm words.
We accept this invitation. If every circumstance becomes a pretext for violent verbal clashes, for mutual accusations, the basis of which does not count but only the polemical force, a mentality of peace will not be expressed, the foundations will not be built.
Faced with the question: “what can I do?” we must remove the fatalistic sense of impotence that risks oppressing everyone.
The affirmation of freedom and the building of peace are in the founding act of our Republic, which expresses the will to realize the future together, through dialogue. It represents the responsibility of being a citizen.
In the coming year we will remember the eightieth years of the Republic.
Eighty years are few if looked at with the eyes of great history but they have been decades of great significance.
Let’s quickly leaf through an imaginary album of the history of the Republic, as we sometimes do when we meet with family.
The first frame of our journey is represented by women. The sign of the unity of the people, in fact, was symbolically impressed by the vote of women, finally called to the polls for the first time.
That sign gave the Republic an indelible democratic character, starting a path, still underway, towards full equality.
The Constituent Assembly, elected at the same time as the referendum which sanctioned the republican choice, was able to find a synthesis of high value while the political dialectic developed between convergences and contrasts, even very strong ones.
In the morning the constituents discussed – and opposed each other – on concrete government measures, in the afternoon, together, they composed the pieces of our Constitutional Charter. The Italian Constitution, which has inspired and guided the country for all these decades.
The Republic is a watershed in our history.
Not a State that dominates citizens but a State that recognizes inviolable rights, the freedom of people, the autonomies of the community.
The Italian democracy that took its first steps in the post-war period is young, dynamic, taking root and communicating in the world.
The images of the signing of the Treaties of Rome, in 1957, deliver a success and another decisive moment, with Italy at the forefront in the construction of the new Europe.
Precisely Europe and transatlantic relations, with the Marshall Plan, are the two pillars of reconstruction. The European Union and the Atlantic Alliance have consistently represented – and constitute – the coordinates of our international action.
A great season of reforms changes the profile of Italy. The agrarian reform, the housing plan, the memory of which recalls the difficulties of young couples in finding a home today in our cities.
The years of the economic miracle present us in the foreground of the faces of the factory workers and those committed to building the large infrastructures that modernized the country.
Work as a fundamental lever of development. The workers’ statute was the instrument that recognizes and establishes rights, dignity and trade union freedom. Values that call for full respect for the indispensable safety at work and fairness of wages.
As well as the establishment of the national health service, which guarantees universality and free treatment, representing another decisive achievement of the welfare state, which places the dignity of the person and the idea of full equality at the centre. Alongside it, the social security system extended to all. Conditions to be preserved in the face of changes of all times.
The contribution of culture, art, cinema, literature and music has been – and remains – fundamental to the growth of national identity. The role of the public service entrusted to Rai, to guarantee pluralism, an essential prerequisite for broad popular involvement in the institutions of the Republic.
More images, this time dramatic. The massacres. Terrorism. We remember the faces and names of the victims. Magistrates, journalists, men from the institutions, members of the police force. And then many, too many young people who fall at the hands of ideologies that make violence their only tool. It will be called the night of the Republic.
But Italy prevails. Institutions prove stronger than terror. And they are thanks to the unity of political and social forces, capable of defending the founding principles of the Republic.
Sport also features prominently in our album. Unforgettable stories and athletes. The protagonists of the 1960 Rome Olympics, in which Italy was the first to introduce Paralympic participation. Sport, therefore, has contributed to the growth of the country, to giving us moments of joy, pride and belonging. Just as it always happens when listening to the Italian anthem at an awards ceremony. All this will be renewed once again with the Milan – Cortina games.
The spread of sport, in addition to the message of peace, friendship and inclusion it expresses, is a powerful antidote to youth violence and drugs.
The film of memory flows. Two faces that we cannot forget: those of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, symbols of legality and the long fight against the mafia. Protagonists even after their assassination: their example continues to inspire – not only in Italy – the new generations and all those who do not resign themselves to the arrogance of crime.
Years of tensions, of great changes that accompanied us in the transition to the new century. To the new millennium. The changes are profound: from language, to lifestyles, to currency.
These eighty years are like a large mosaic, the full meaning of which we can only grasp by moving away from the individual pieces that compose it.
Obviously, gaps and contradictions should not be ignored, but we were a society with a low level of education, with high emigration rates. We have become one of the strongest countries in manufacturing and exports, capable of enhancing the genius of creativity in many sectors. We are appreciated all over the world for our lifestyles, for the beauty of our territories, for the artistic treasures we guard. For the culture of food and wine, which becomes international heritage.
Italy is a very important player on the international scene, also thanks to the contribution that our military has given and continues to give to the construction of security and peace. Here too, a path with high costs, starting with the sacrifice of our airmen on a humanitarian mission in Kindu, Congo, in 1961.
The Italy of the Republic is a success story in the world. We can and must be proud of it.
We can because this story is the fruit of the sacrifice, commitment and participation of many generations of Italians. Everyone has placed their own piece in that mosaic. In every house, in every family there is a story to tell.
We often say that the principles and values that the founding mothers and fathers engraved in the Constitution eighty years ago must be lived, witnessed every day: this is what made them become reality in the daily choices of each of us.
Our true strength, social cohesion in freedom and democracy, has allowed us to make Italy the great country it is today. The legitimate dialectics between the various positions have contributed to concrete achievements that have changed people’s lives for the better. Rights and duties have progressively become facts and have not remained abstract statements.
Reflecting on what we have achieved together is the basis for being able to look to the future with confidence and with renewed common commitment. Awareness of this history can give us strength to face the challenges and pitfalls of our time with serenity.
Old and new forms of poverty – which exist and must be urgently combated – inequalities, injustices, behaviors that harm the collective good such as corruption, fiscal infidelity, environmental crimes: cracks that risk compromising the very social cohesion that we consider a precious asset we have.
An asset that, however, is never definitively acquired. A good for which we are called to commit ourselves, each according to their level of responsibility, without anyone feeling exempt. Because we are the Republic. Each of us.
We are facing old and new problems, increased by the uncertainty of the international context we are experiencing. Furthermore, today we enter a time in which everything becomes global and interdependent, from the economy, to the environment, to the climate, to the technological revolutions that affect our lives, to the risks of pandemics, to the networks of fundamentalist terrorism.
But no obstacle is stronger than our democracy.
I would like to remind all of us and address, in particular, the younger ones.
Someone – who judges you without really knowing you – describes you as distrustful, detached, angry: don’t give up.
Be demanding, courageous. Choose your future.
Feel responsible like the generation that, eighty years ago, built modern Italy.
Congratulations!
Happy 2026!
