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President Meloni’s end-of-year press conference

Thursday, 29 December 2022

[The following video is available in Italian only]

GREETING BY PRESIDENT MELONI

Good morning everyone.  

I wish to thank the President of the Consiglio Nazionale dell'Ordine dei Giornalisti [National Council of the Order of Journalists], Carlo Bartoli, the President of the Associazione della Stampa Parlamentare [Parliamentary Press Association], Adalberto Signore, and all of you.

I very much welcome the stimulus I have received regarding the need to address a number of matters that relate to this profession, to the Order of Journalists, and I am fully willing to work together on these. I say that as President of the Council of Ministers and as a member of the Order of Journalists, because I always think that one day I will return to my work as a journalist. I have always thought that politics should be a transitional period in each of our lives, so I always look favourably at what is also my profession, but above all a profession that plays a crucial role in a democratic system such as our own.

Being able and having the possibility to carry out this work in the best way possible is fundamental, clearly acknowledging the responsibility that comes with it, but with conditions of freedom and stability (with regard to the issue of job insecurity) and salaries that are appropriate for that level of responsibility and for that role. 

So, all I can say is that I will be very happy to meet with the President of the Order of Journalists, in particular, in order to look at these matters in depth, as this may also be a Government initiative to examine issues that have not been adequately addressed over the last decades. I wanted to give you my availability and thank you for this event, which is new for me. I am of course not referring to press conferences in general, but to the end-of-year press conference. In this case, I believe this is also quite new for you too, as I am head of a government that has not been in office for a year and therefore cannot give an account of the work it has done over the last twelve months; this is perhaps more of a start-of-mandate conference. I shall stop here because I know that your questions are what are of most interest at this event, and I want to leave enough time for them. Thank you.

[Courtesy translation]