MARSEILLE (FRANCE) (ITALPRESS) – “Peace is not a free gift of history. Statesmen and peoples, to achieve it, must deploy their commitment to it. Peace must be desired, built, guarded. Even with the patient deployment of trust measures.” This was said by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in his lectio magistralis on the occasion of the conferment of the academic honor of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Aix-Marseille. “Does Europe intend to be an object in the international dispute, an area in which others exert their influence, or, instead, to become a subject of international politics, in the affirmation of the values of its own civilization? Can it accept being squeezed between oligarchies and autocracies? With, at best, the prospect of “happy vassalage.” A choice must be made: to be “protected” or to be “protagonists”? – The Italy of the Communes, in the 12th and 13th centuries, suggestive but entrenched in the defense of the identities of each, registered the impossibility of becoming a critical mass, of surviving autonomously and was invaded, suffered partitioning,” the head of state added. “Europe appears to be at a crossroads, divided, as it is, between smaller states and states that have not yet understood that they too are small, in the face of the new world conjuncture. The European Union is one of the most concrete examples of regional integration and is, perhaps, the most advanced project-and successful example-of peace and democracy in history. It undoubtedly represents a hope for countering the return of conflicts caused by nationalism. A model of coexistence that, not by chance, has aroused emulation in other continents, in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia. “It constitutes a point of reference in the international affair, for a dynamic and constructive multilateralism, with a proposal of values and standards that concretely abandons the specious narrative that would have the behaviors of the “badtivists” more concrete and fruitful than those of the so-called “goodists.” The European Union sows and disseminates futures for humanity. Witness the international stabilization agreements made with such realities as Canada, Mexico, and Mercosur. The same neighborhood policies, the intentions put in place after the Barcelona Declaration on the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (we are 30 years from that date) – continued the president -. It is necessary for international interlocutors to know that they have in Europe a firm reference for policies of peace and common growth. A guardian and patron of the rights of the person, democracy, and the rule of law. Anyone who thinks these values are challengeable should know that, in the wake of its precursors, Europe will not betray freedom and democracy. Are the alliances themselves justified only on the basis of – transient – convergences of interests and, therefore, by definition, variable geometry, or are they also about values? Europe, Simone Veil reminded the European Parliament in 1979, is aware that “islands of freedom are surrounded by regimes in which brute force prevails. Our Europe is one of these islands.'”Staying perched on this island is not the answer: we need a stable and mature international order to react to the entropy and disorder caused by power politics, and to face the great transnational challenges of our time. The current institutions are not enough, however, and the reflections put in place by the Conference on the Future of Europe in the past years deserve to be taken up and implemented, with a more incisive common foreign and defense policy, capable of conveying confidence in Europe’s role in responding to global challenges,” the head of state said again. “We have shown that we are able to act effectively in crises, such as during the pandemic, and that we are able to oppose with unity of purpose unacceptable violations of the right of peoples, as in the case of Russian aggression against Ukraine. With the same effectiveness d unity we must now renew ourselves, in order to safeguard the security and well-being of European peoples and contribute to world peace, starting with the Mediterranean dimension and the relationship with the contiguous African continent. We cannot be guided by resignation but by the will to give content to the steps necessary to achieve these results.””Aldo Moro, the Italian statesman who was assassinated by the Red Brigades, in his capacity as rotating president of the then European Communities (they gathered 9 countries),” Mattarella recalled, “speaking at the concluding session of the Helsinki Conference, proposed to give meaning to the phase of international détente that was being announced, stressing that it meant “the exaltation of the ideals of freedom and justice, an ever more effective protection of human rights, an enrichment of peoples by virtue of better mutual knowledge, freer contacts, and an ever wider circulation of ideas and information.” The European Union-and in it France and Italy-must place itself at the head of a movement that in claiming the founding principles of our international order knows how to renew it, attentive to the demands of those who feel marginalized by the current construction. A path that is not that of abandoning the international bodies nor that of repudiating the principles and norms that govern us but of a profound and shared reform of the multilateral system, more inclusive and egalitarian than what the victorious powers of World War II were able to do, to whom, however, the great merit of bringing together winners and losers for a new world must be acknowledged,” Mattarella continued. “New ideas are needed and not the application of old models to new interests of the few. Universities are candidates to bring out these ideas. Dear students, history is engraved in human behavior. The future of the planet depends on the ability to shape the international order so that it serves the human person. Today’s choices of multilateralism and solidarity will determine the quality of your tomorrow. It is a matter of not repeating the mistakes of the past, but of creating a new narrative. Only together, as a global community, can we hope to build a prosperous future inspired by fairness and stability.”
– Quirinal press office photo –
(ITALPRESS).
