Mattarella: «I hope for great participation in the European Championships. But we need incisive reforms”

«In a few weeks, 400 million European citizens will be called to the polls to elect the new Parliament. It will be a great exercise in democracy. And I hope that there will be great participation in the vote because in this way citizens are protagonists of the future of the continent and of the Union of which they are part.” Sergio Mattarella said this at the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Slovenia’s membership of the EU. For the President of the Republic, “the courage to carry out incisive and courageous reforms will be needed, which will be left to the next period after the European Parliament elections”. «It will then be the task of the European institutions and governments – continued the President after the call to vote – to ensure that the Union is a protagonist in international life by making its contribution which is essentially a desire for peace, collaboration and stability. We cannot remain in a condition in which Europe and all its member states are consequently often spectators of what happens in the international community even in the face of events of which they sometimes suffer the consequences.”

«The entry of Slovenia – continued the head of state – into the institutions European elections was a very successful event. In the space of a generation, Slovenia has taken a path that has led it to reach the Schengen and Eurozone parameters in just three years. Italy, as a directly neighboring country, was able to experience that event with emotion, because the Union realized the future prospects of the two peoples, Slovenian and Italian. I remember the president of the European Commission at the time, Romano Prodi, in Nova Gorica and Gorizia tearing down that last border emblem, of separation between the two cities, which in 1925 will together be the European Capital of Culture. That union was able to be wise and courageous, promoting, in addition to the great enlargement of 2004, also a convention that proposed a project of European construction, which was then not realized due to the opposition of some countries”.

«History always presents the count of lost opportunities and then it is the people who pay a heavy price later. That European Union, protagonist of the enlargement of 1 May 2004, knew how to be wise and courageous. Today, because events demand it, we need a similar constructive spirit in the face of the challenges and threats we face. Some of the countries that contribute to the life of the Union today find themselves on the border with the terrible war caused by Russian aggression against Ukraine which violated every rule of international law.”

«There are reform needs that are of an institutional nature», however it concerns the «decision-making process», because «the problems in this world arise quickly and require timely responses. The European Union is not in a position to take timely responses, because problems don’t wait.” «The second reform concerns the common defense of the Union», which «is indispensable» also in light of «Russian aggression against Ukraine», he added. «A third proposal» for reform «concerns the financial system of the Union which must be completed, it is incomplete. An incomplete financial system cannot last for long, otherwise it collapses and dissolves, also overwhelming the economy of the member countries.”

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April 22, 2024 (modified April 22, 2024 | 3:13 pm)

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