“Once again we are at a crossroads. What allows us to look at the progress of humanity? War or peace?’ Sergio Mattarella speaks at the eighth edition of Mediterranean dialogue and with a rhetorical question outlines the situation of recent months after the Russian “unacceptable aggression” against Ukraine: “We must start from those principles placed at the basis of our civil coexistence and founded in the framework of the United Nations. To consolidate the multilateral system and make it more democratic, it is necessary to refer to equality between states, avoiding polarization at the international level and an exasperation of diversity, which certainly exists, which an effective dialogue can help to reduce”.
According to the President of the Republic “today, in respect of our cultural and political differences, the multiplication of crisis scenarios must in fact push us to deepen and extend our collaboration to face, as happened in the past, the challenges we face”. The conflict in Europe “has also generated a food supply crisis that afflicts countries on the southern shore and which, while forcing urgent solutions to be found, pushes us together to continue on the path of promoting sustainable agro-food systems”. «It is a question – he underlined – of a global challenge which, in the enlarged Mediterranean area, risks accentuating already existing problems and spreading instability and insecurity. We need concrete steps.”
On the Mediterranean, “the interdependence existing between the two shores makes investments in terms of political attention towards the southern one urgent”, continued Mattarella. «Having reached the eighth edition of the “Mediterranean Dialogues” – he added – is certainly a reason for satisfaction and I am pleased to be able to open its proceedings. The presence of President Ghazouani and President Bazoum give further depth and vigor to an initiative which represents a direct and concrete testimony of the attention with which Italy looks to the enlarged Mediterranean».
But, the head of state underlined, «it could not be otherwise, due to our history, our geographical location and the relationships that have always linked us to the countries located in this region. The Mediterranean is above all a space for sharing, a crossroads of cultures, to quote Fernand Braudel “not a civilization but a series of civilizations stacked one on top of the other”, therefore with the richness of their diversity and the common destiny that binds them» .