NEW YORK (UNITED STATES) (ITALPRESS) – ‘It is a very complex era in which we live, and the common character of the challenges of our time requires us to think in a completely new way. Thus began Premier Giorgia Meloni, in her address to the UN General Assembly. A 13-minute speech during which she ranged over many topics.
‘The wound inflicted on the rules-based international system by Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine,’ she stressed, ‘is having destabilizing effects far beyond the borders in which it is being waged, and like a domino is helping to rekindle, or detonate, other hotbeds of crisis. Democratic political systems face unprecedented pitfalls. Geo-economic fragmentation is growing with consequences we all have to deal with, especially the most fragile nations. The path to reducing environmental emissions is at a crossroads, squeezed between ideological approaches and lack of solidarity, especially from major greenhouse gas emitters.
‘Water and energy scarcity are increasingly affecting the development, food security and social stability of entire communities.
‘The instrumental use of religious faith,’ he added, ‘becomes a factor of tension or, worse, a factor of persecution: there are millions of people in the world who suffer because of their profession of faith, and in first place as victims are Christians.
‘We are witnessing,’ she continued, ‘the disruptive advent of generative artificial intelligence, a revolution that raises entirely new questions. Although I am not sure it is correct to call it intelligence. Because intelligent is the one who asks the questions, not the one who gives the answers by processing the data. In any case, it is a technology that, unlike any we have seen throughout history, draws a world in which progress no longer optimizes human skills, but can replace them, with consequences that are likely to be dramatic especially in the labor market, verticalizing and concentrating wealth more and more. It is no coincidence that Italy wanted this issue to be at the center of the agenda of its G7 presidency, because we want to play our part in defining a global governance of artificial intelligence, capable of reconciling innovation, rights, labor, intellectual property, freedom of expression, and democracy.
‘This complexity,’ he pointed out, ‘animated by deeply interconnected challenges, tells us first of all one thing: the problems of the Global South are also the problems of the Global North, and vice versa. There are no longer homogeneous blocs, and the interdependence of our destinies is a fact. That is why we are called to think outside the patterns we have known in the past. The challenge is a decisive paradigm shift in relations between nations and in the functioning of multilateral bodies; the goal is to build a completely new model of cooperation.
‘Personally I am convinced,’ Giorgia Meloni explained, ‘that this new model can and must be based on some, unfortunately not taken for granted, principles: mutual respect, sharing, concreteness. It means relating to the other as equals, recovering that ability to know how to listen in order to understand the reasons of the other that is the basis of any mutual trust. Precisely because we believe in this approach, Italy conceived all the appointments of its G7 presidency year in an open format, with a very broad outreach, involving all the Continents, the G20, the African Union, the Economic Financial Institutions and the Multilateral Development Banks. We have shown that the G7 is not a closed fortress, wanting to defend itself from someone, but an open offer of values to the world.
‘I am thinking then of the turning point that Italy has made in its relations with Africa,’ he added. ‘We have made our investment plan for Africa, the Mattei Plan, operational at the bilateral level, with pilot projects in nine nations on the continent, creating strategic partnerships with each of them. We have structured operational synergies with the European Union’s Global Gateway and the G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.’
‘We built new financial instruments with the African Development Bank and the World Bank, to enable the inflow of public and private resources,’ he recalled. ‘We envisioned innovative solutions, such as the Apulia Food Security Initiative, to strengthen agricultural production and food security, or the Energy for Growth in Africa, to support clean energy production and distribution. We decided to support strategic projects for Africa, such as the Lobito corridor. We have done all this without ever ceasing to engage and engage with our African stakeholders. Because our intent is not to impose, but to share. And, together, to choose priorities, areas of intervention, areas of action. Where we could be an added value, there we offered our point of view and our collaboration. With concrete projects that are already bearing fruit. In Algeria, where we will make 36 thousand hectares of desert land fertile for cultivation and build a local processing and production chain. In Kenya, with the development of a biofuel supply chain that will reach up to two hundred thousand small farms by the end of 2025. In Ethiopia, with extensive environmental rehabilitation of the Lake Boye area in the west of the country. Because, I want to reiterate once again, our goal, in the face of tens of thousands of people who face desperate journeys to enter Europe illegally, is to guarantee first of all their right not to have to migrate, not to have to sever their roots simply because they have no other choice. A desperation on which unscrupulous criminal organizations are profiting, increasingly powerful and ramified. I proposed a year ago, from this very podium, that we declare a global war on human traffickers, and I am glad that that call has not fallen on deaf ears, and that first and foremost at the G7 level an agreement has been found to initiate international coordination to dismantle these criminal networks. But more needs to be done. The United Nations must do more, because these criminal organizations are reintroducing, in other forms, a slavery-understood as the commodification of the human being-that this Assembly, at other times, played a key role in eradicating for good. There is no going back.
‘Defeating the slavers of the Third Millennium is possible,’ Giorgia Meloni stressed, ‘and we can do it if we join forces, with greater cooperation and joint initiatives between our police forces, intelligence services and judicial authorities, and by adopting the ‘follow the money’ formula. An intuition of two great Italian judges, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, which has become a model, even internationally, for countering criminal organizations.
It is a method by which Italy intends to strengthen its cooperation with Latin American nations as well. Because there is a common thread linking the organizations that speculate on human trafficking in Africa and those who run drug trafficking in Latin America, or the abomination of those who kidnap children to make them sex slaves of unscrupulous rich men, depriving them of their present and their future. Latin America where, as unfortunately happens in several regions of the world, the legitimate aspirations for freedom and democracy of tens of millions of people continue to remain unfulfilled. I am thinking in particular of the Venezuelan people, to whom all our solidarity and support goes. The international community cannot stand idly by while, almost two months after the July 28 elections, there is still no recognition of the election result, but in the meantime there has been brutal repression, the death of dozens of protesters, the arbitrary arrest of thousands of political opponents, and the indictment and exile of the presidential candidate of the democratic opposition. It is our duty to raise our voicesè.
‘Dear friends,’ he continued, ‘in 2025 we will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the United Nations Charter. Charter that enshrines principles and values that in this time have been questioned even by a permanent member of the Security Council, but on whose defense Italy does not intend to retreat. Because they are principles and values placed as a guarantee for all, especially for nations that have fewer tools to defend themselves. As always, the law must be the same for all, but because this serves above all to defend the weakest.
That is why we cannot turn away from Ukraine’s right to defend its borders, its sovereignty, its freedom. Just as we affirm the right of the State of Israel to defend itself from external attacks, such as the horrific one of last October 7, but at the same time we call on Israel to respect international law, protecting the civilian population, which is also largely a victim of Hamas and its destructive choicesè.
‘And following the same reasoning,’ he explained, ‘we also support, of course, the right of the Palestinian people to have their own state. But for this to see the light of day soon, it is necessary for the Palestinians to entrust it to a leadership inspired by dialogue, stabilization of the Middle East and autonomy. The Abrahamic Accords demonstrated the possibility of beneficial coexistence and cooperation on the basis of mutual recognition. If this is the perspective on which we all must work, and it is, the imperative today is to achieve, without further delay, a ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate release of the Israeli hostages. We can no longer witness tragedies like those of these days in South and East Lebanon, involving defenseless civilians, including many children.
‘That said,’ he added, ‘next year’s anniversary imposes a historic occasion on all of us. To finally be aware that, like it or not, today’s problems involve us and affect us all. We must know how to question ourselves, with humility and awareness. And this also calls for serious reflection on multilateralism, on the ability of international organizations to live up to this era and the challenges it presents us with. I speak, of course, also of the United Nations, of its ability to reform itself starting from what is useful and necessary, and not from what is easier. Italy is convinced that any revision of the UN’s functioning architecture, starting with the Security Council, cannot disregard the principles of equality, democratic and representativeness. It would be a mistake to create new hierarchies, with new permanent seats. We are open to discuss the reform without any bias, but we want a reform that serves to better represent everyone, not to better represent some.
‘Colleagues, delegates, ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult time in which we have been called to govern our nations,’ he concluded. ‘Everything around us seems to be changing, everything is being questioned, and the few certainties we thought we had are no longer so. Fate challenges us, but ultimately it does so to test us. In the storm, we can prove ourselves equal to the task history has given us. Prove it to the citizens we govern, prove it to our children. Prove it to ourselves, perhaps above all to ourselves, because as a great Italian patriot, Carlo Pisacane, the protagonist of that Risorgimento that made Italy a united nation, used to say, ‘every reward I shall find in the depths of my conscience. Tackling problems rather than postponing them, advancing rather than retreating, preferring what is right to what is useful, this is our task, difficult but necessary. Italy, as always, is ready to do its partè.
– photo Palazzo Chigi press office –
(ITALPRESS).
Meloni “Fate challenges us, but Italy is ready to do its part”
