Good evening everyone.

My thanks to Prime Minister Kishida for his warm welcome. I would like to once again express our sympathy to the Japanese people following the tragic earthquake. It is, of course, a great pleasure for me to be here today in this allied nation with whom Italy has been working in great harmony across the board. Just over a year has passed since, together with Prime Minister Kishida, we launched our strategic partnership in Rome, which immediately resulted in tangible facts: there has been a significant increase not only in our political dialogue (today’s is our fourth bilateral meeting in just under a year) but also in concrete cooperation between our nations. Over the last 12 months, we have finalised important agreements that strengthen our cooperation in the scientific and industrial fields, we have signed an agreement for the co-production of films, and, thanks to our joint work, an agreement on social security will come into force on April 1st, whereby Italian and Japanese workers will no longer have to be subject to double taxation.

Thanks also to the relaunch of the Italy-Japan Business Group, we have given new impetus to collaborations between our companies and to mutual investments; in this regard, among other things, I spoke today with the heads of some of the largest Japanese business groups that operate in Italy. This intensification of our relations also resulted in a 10% increase in trade last year, now worth over EUR 15 billion. However, our cooperation is seeing an important revitalisation above all in political and strategic terms. A new Foreign Affairs-Defence consultation mechanism has been established and will begin in March; as the Prime Minister mentioned, important joint military exercises have been organised involving both the navy and the air force; Italy intends to have an increasingly significant presence and will send additional aircraft and naval equipment this year – our ‘Cavour’ aircraft carrier will also arrive here, as will our ‘Amerigo Vespucci’ training ship and F-35s, so a very significant presence that reflects a cooperation that we consider strategic.

A key part of this strategic cooperation was, of course, the signing, together with the United Kingdom, of the convention on the establishment of an international organisation and agency tasked with managing the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), i.e., the programme to jointly develop a cutting-edge, sixth-generation fighter jet by 2035. This clearly means innovation, growth, jobs and broad prospects for further industrial cooperation. With Fumio, we have agreed on the importance of continuing along this path, by launching concrete projects as part of the Memorandum we have already signed for cooperation on scientific research, and by intensifying cooperation in strategic sectors such as space, semiconductors and energy, as well as boosting defence cooperation also beyond GCAP.
This path clearly also takes us towards the Osaka Expo in 2025, to which we obviously intend to make a major contribution, matching our great spirit of friendship and cooperation. I am very proud that Italy was the first nation to begin building its pavilion, laying the first stone: this reflects the importance we attribute to this event.

Our strategic alignment is of a bilateral but also, of course, of a multilateral nature, as can be seen in how we have worked together to ensure an efficient handover between our respective G7 Presidencies. Here, before the press, I would like to once again express my deep appreciation for the tremendous work by the Japanese Presidency last year. Despite being an extremely complex year, the work carried out, first and foremost by Prime Minister Kishida, ensured continued attention to today’s major challenges, from the war in Ukraine to stability in the Indo-Pacific, as well as allowing for a focus on increasingly key issues on the international agenda, such as the management of artificial intelligence.

We will continue to focus on all these issues during our G7 Presidency, and we obviously want to continue paying particular attention to the safeguarding of the law-based international order, the peaceful resolution of global crises and our relationship with the countries of the Global South, with a special focus on the African continent, energy security and food security, all of course revolving around a simple concept: human-centredness, which is also crucial in our approach to new technologies. Our discussions will continue over dinner, when we will be addressing the main issues on the international agenda. We will of course be talking about the crisis in Gaza, where both our nations are committed to providing humanitarian assistance; about the situation in the Red Sea, which has repercussions on global stability and trade; and about the Indo-Pacific, which is a strategic area of global importance that also has significant regional issues to deal with. We will be talking about Ukraine, just a few days away from 24 February, the anniversary of when Moscow began its war of aggression. I know I am having to say this before speaking with the Japanese Prime Minister about them, but these are all issues on which there is a strong convergence of views, which is a key element of our solid friendship.
So, my sincere thanks for this welcome, and I am grateful for the ability we have had to further strengthen our relationship.

[Courtesy translation]