ROME, 21 DECEMBER – “In an international landscape where crises are becoming increasingly more global, our response, in order to be effective, can only be at the multilateral level. This is, after all, the vocation expressed throughout more than seventy years of history since the foundation of the Italian Republic, engraved in the text of our Constitution”, emphasized Italy’s head of state Sergio Mattarella in a message to the National Conference of Ambassadors, underway today and tomorrow at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Over a hundred Heads of Mission – including Permanent Representatives to the UN and other international organisations in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Rome, Paris – are meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Antonio Tajani to discuss Italian diplomacy at the service of the country in a changing world.
“Today, we are experiencing a change of an era rather than an era of change. Nowadays, the influence of foreign policy in our everyday life and the attention of public opinion is growing”, said the Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, Ettore Sequi, explaining the issues at hand: “The title ‘Italian diplomacy at the service of the country in a changing world’ contains three words: diplomacy, service, change, which already define what it means to implement foreign policy today”.
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, spoke at the Conference: “The world needs diplomacy more than ever”, she said, recalling that “Vladimir Putin’s brutal attack against Ukraine has upset the axis on which our geographical reality lays. Europe remained united where someone saw us already divided”. Metsola thanked Italy for “showing such leadership in issues it deals with, for the common good it does all over the world. For the silent diplomacy that solves problems that the world will never even get to know”.
Speaking at the session on foreign policy, Minister Tajani thanked for the support of the whole Italian Parliament, “with which foreign policy has a fundamental relationship in order to jointly identify strategies and ideas. Parliamentary diplomacy is essential to Italian foreign policy”, he added: “We have a responsibility to lead it, but we need a whole system. With a Parliament with a clear strategic vision, the role of our country becomes stronger”. (@OnuItalia)
