GORIZIA (ITALPRESS) – “I address a greeting to the President of the Region, the Mayor, the Archbishop, the members of the Commission, and the Ambassador of Slovenia. I feel the honor of receiving this recognition together with the President Emeritus of the Republic of Slovenia Pahor – my friend Borut – and I emphasize the significance of this moment, which expresses the vocation of the City of Gorica to be a protagonist in the European project. Gorizia is living an extraordinary year: a month ago I was here together with the Slovenian President, Natasha Pirc Musar, to whom I address a thought of great and cordial friendship. Many authorities attended, who were also present today, to celebrate the beginning of the year of Nova Gorica and Gorizia jointly as European Capital of Culture.” This was said by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in his speech at the Verdi Theater in Gorizia where he received the Patroni Prize together with former Slovenian head of state Borut Pahor. “I think we all felt that day in Transalpina Square that we were witnessing a moment of historical significance, capable of injecting profound effects into the future of Europe. It fell to President Pahor and myself in happy fate to witness firsthand an extraordinary event: the gradual transformation of a border, conceived as a dividing trace in the heart of a city and a population, to a place of meeting and sharing. This ceremony seems to me to fit into that change.”
MATTARELLA’S WORDS
“A renewed and rediscovered freedom, of movement, of fraternity, the merit of which does not lie with individuals or institutions-whose contribution is, of course, valuable-but is the fruit of our civil societies, which have been able to patiently rebuild those bonds of friendship, solidarity and mutual trust that the fatal events of World War II, and the years that preceded it, had severed in this corner of the territory that had seen Italians, Slavs, Germans, living in peace. It is to the citizens of these lands that we owe the success of this journey: mature societies, grown up in democracy, with effective antibodies to the enticements of sterile and dangerous nationalism that have done so much serious damage,” Mattarella added.
“The communion of purpose between the political authorities of Slovenia and Italy represents the institutional reflection of an impulse rooted in their respective peoples, in the desire for friendship expressed by their citizens, divided by a physical border, the legacy of war, but united in the conviction that the horrors, the feeling of retaliation and revenge had to give way to peaceful coexistence, to reconciliation. This is how Gorizia and Nova Gorica, which have always been crossroads of different peoples, languages and cultures, became the vehicle – hand in hand, as Mayor Ziberna pointed out – of this goal. The two cities have courageously turned the geographical proximity of the two identities into an opportunity, creating an invaluable example not only for our two countries, but for the whole of Europe and the values that the Union project represents. Cooperation as a conscious and rational choice to pool knowledge, resources, culture and experience for the benefit of people. The border, from being a hostile place thus becomes a factor of opportunity, meeting of resources, and growth, in the economy, science, and cultural identities,” he concluded.
– photo: IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
