Good morning, good morning everyone.
My sincere thanks, thanks to Chancellor Nehammer, thanks to Governor Leitner, thanks to the organisers and my greetings also go to President Radev.

This really is an extraordinary occasion for me, with this event being held every year in a place so full of history and spirituality. A place that allows us to reflect on the Christian civilisation’s enormous significance for European identity, history and culture. 
In this wonderful abbey in the heart of Europe, home to the principles of the great Italian St. Benedict, our continent’s main patron saint, we are here today to talk about the future of Europe.
I believe this is a very important choice because, to understand where Europe has to go, we must first ask ourselves what Europe is.
Europe (and we have sometimes forgotten, or seemingly forgotten, this) is not simply a geographical place and nor is it a set of rules or a set of interests. First and foremost and above all, Europe is a civilisation and that civilisation was forged by the values of places like this.

Hence why I believe the message being given this morning is a very beautiful one. Hence why I enthusiastically accepted Chancellor Nehammer’s, my friend Karl Nehammer’s, invitation. I have discovered that eight years have passed since a President of the Council of Ministers of Italy last visited Austria and I was really taken aback by this considering we are neighbouring nations, friends, nations that work together in an extremely significant way on many fronts. I wanted to remedy this and I wanted to do so with this initiative, which I consider to be particularly important.
You see, in this civilisation I was talking about, Italy’s role and Austria’s role are not secondary. Austria and Italy are, of course, united by an age-old relationship, that was at times troubled in the past but is now extremely solid and friendly, that was built by the wisdom of the generations before us and that, today, is our responsibility to preserve, enhance and strengthen. It is precisely because Italy and Austria did not play a secondary role in the construction of Europe that, today, these nations also have a responsibility for Europe’s future. Italy has historically been a natural bridge between the north and south of Europe; its head lies in part of Mitteleuropa and its feet are bathed in the Mediterranean sea, historically looking towards the Balkans. Austria has historically been a bridge between what John Paul II defined as the two lungs Europe needed to breathe: the lung of the East and the lung of the West.
Without these nations, Europe would not have existed in the past; without these nations, Europe cannot exist in the future.
It therefore makes sense that, together, we discuss what has worked and what hasn’t worked, because our task today, at what is certainly not an easy time, is to take up this legacy we have and carry it into the future – making this history, this identity, our friendship, an added value in addressing the many, too many challenges we are facing at this complex time.

The pandemic.
The pandemic shook the foundations of international trade and mobility, highlighting the weaknesses of our supply chains and the limits of a globalisation that was preconceived differently to how it then materialised. 
I believe that if we really want to address the future, we must have the courage to question the past in a truthful way. We were convinced that unregulated free trade would have distributed wealth, that it would have democratised nations that were less democratic than our own and that, in the end, the result would have been a win-win. However, that is not how things went. 
Unregulated free trade has ‘verticalised’ wealth, has strengthened systems that are less democratic than our own and has, paradoxically, strengthened autocracies and weakened democratic systems. We woke up when the pandemic came, realising we no longer controlled anything; realising we were exposed, with even the slightest movement on the other side of the world having the potential to cause a storm here. This is how things went. 

While we were still trying to restore international trade and the world as we knew it, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine came along and disrupted energy prices, unleashing waves of inflation everywhere that especially affected the most vulnerable nations. This also exposed the mistakes made by a Europe that was born as an economic coal and steel community, i.e., for the precise purpose of linking cooperation among States to the issue of energy supplies and raw material supplies, and that today finds itself most exposed on the very issue of energy and raw material supplies.
Not to mention that the conflict has widened the existing gaps between the north and south of the world; I am thinking of the repercussions in terms of food security for many African countries, already suffering the effects of climate change. This is resulting in an unprecedented migration crisis which is reverberating above all in Europe, above all in our nations.

The war has put stability, peace and global security at risk; a world order that is not given by a group of nations but rather by international law that everyone respects and that acts as a guarantee for everyone. 
You see, the thing that people who claim that helping Ukraine basically means increasing the risk of the conflict escalating (and there are such people also in Italy, perhaps also due to political propaganda interests) don’t understand – or what they pretend not to understand - is that the exact opposite is true.

If we had not helped the Ukrainians, if the Ukrainians had not shown extraordinary courage, teaching the whole world what it means to try and make a free and sovereign nation yield, if none of this had happened, then today we would be living in a much less secure world; we would be living with a war much closer to home; we would be living in a world where the law of the strongest replaces the strength of the law, a world in which those with superior military strength can freely invade their neighbours. Who needs a world like that?

Defending stability, peace and security is precisely what we are doing, and to do this we must support the European Union (as indeed Italy, Austria, Bulgaria and the other nations have done), which has been united on this, showing capacity for vision and strategy. Ensuring and preserving peace is precisely what we are doing.
We are now seeing what has been happening over the last few hours; at this moment in time, we are not in a position to judge what is happening. There is, however, one thing that we can make a judgement on: the reality behind certain propaganda about the compactness of the Russian Federation has today been revealed. 

In short, it must be said that we are right in the middle of a crisis situation. Many crises. However, crises bring opportunity. Crises provide a real opportunity to question ourselves, to rethink ourselves; they are a real opportunity to make choices. And making choices is what politics is all about. So, this is our time, it is time for politics.
Understanding our mistakes, correcting them, telling the truth, making decisions, not being afraid of living up to history, because history lies before us and is calling on us to prove our worth.

I therefore believe a new era is needed.
I believe a new era is needed, for example, in international relations, especially with regard to countries in the southern partnership. A model based on equal cooperation among nations, free of predatory ambitions and of economic or any other kind of coercion. A less paternalistic and more effective approach is needed in relations with these countries, starting with Africa.
Italy has been going down this path particularly since the new Government came into office. It is only natural that we should be at the forefront of this, as this is demanded by our geographical positioning, which makes us a continental nation and a Mediterranean nation at the same time; in other words, the natural platform for trade, the natural platform for logistics and economic and cultural exchanges between the two continents of Europe and Africa.

Today, we want to play that role by envisaging the peninsula as a future energy supply hub for the whole of Europe, acting as a point of entry, as a logistics platform, for what will largely be clean energy, a significant part of which can also be produced by African countries. Austria’s role in this is key: we are working together on distribution infrastructure, with the SoutH2 Corridor between Italy, Austria and Germany becoming a fundamental piece of connection infrastructure for what we are calling the ‘Mattei Plan for Africa’.

This project involves Italy setting up partnerships with producing countries and working to build this ideal bridge to connect Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa. This means investing in Africa and interconnection with the European Union; it means addressing the issue of African development strategically and simultaneously.

Because Africa is not a poor continent. Africa is an extremely rich continent.
It is simply a continent that has not been sufficiently helped to bring out those riches, to live off those riches.

This is not only a responsibility of ours but is also something that is strategically useful for us: today, the clean energy that can be produced in Africa can help those nations to grow and live off what they have. When we talk about migration flows, we must remember that the first right we are called upon to guarantee is not the right to migrate, but the right not to have to emigrate, not to have to flee your own home, your own family, your own land, simply because there is no alternative.
We must work to build that alternative, and we can do it. 
With projects such as this one, that are today enabling us to work, looking forward, on how to solve our energy supply problem; to work on how to develop wealth in Africa, which is potential but it is there; to work on a strategic partnership, which is something that, in my view, Europe was not so focused on in the past.
Also in this regard, with regard to migration, I believe we must have the courage for a completely new approach. I very much appreciated the words of the Governor who spoke before me.
You see, for a long time, those asking for illegal migration flows to be governed were basically considered inhumane or racist, while those who, let’s say, supported the phenomenon were considered humane and sympathetic. Are we sure that’s the case? Is it really humane to give free rein to ruthless traffickers who charge as much as EUR 9 thousand for journeys of hope, often leading to tens of thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean?
Is it humane to allow these human traffickers to decide who should arrive in Europe and who shouldn’t? Not on the basis of who has more right to be saved but on the basis of the fact that they have the money to pay for the trip.
Is it humane not to govern those flows, and then stand there discussing, even arguing, among ourselves about who should take care of these people? Is it humane to allow hundreds of thousands of people to enter who, not being managed, clearly cannot even be appropriately included in our societies, only to then perhaps leave them in the peripheries of our large metropolitan cities, to deal drugs or fall into the hands of organised crime? I do not believe this is humane.

Being humane means international cooperation for development; being humane means giving priority to those who are really fleeing war and violence; being humane is ensuring that those who have the right to come to Europe, under the Geneva Convention or the European Union’s subsidiary protection, do not have to pay human traffickers to arrive. This is humane: distinguishing between refugees and economic migrants and managing the two issues in a completely different way, because they are different; working with the countries of origin and of transit; training the people we can bring to Europe and giving them a dignified life.

This is what the European civilisation calls for. When you come and choose to contribute to the growth of my community, that community must give you exactly the same rights as it does its citizens. A new paradigm is therefore needed, and we have built it, for which I wish to thank Chancellor Nehammer, because we have worked very well on this, also to overcome the somewhat unfruitful ‘clash’ between the issue of secondary movements and the issue of primary movements. It is useless to try and govern secondary movements if you don’t start by governing primary movements. Today, we are therefore working on the external dimension, we are working on cooperation with these countries. We have changed the European Union paradigm. I am very proud of this, although it is not enough and we know it. There will be a European Council meeting next week. We are determined that concrete progress be made on this matter.

We have begun with Tunisia, for example, where we have carried out important work, for which I wish to thank President of the European Commission von der Leyen. She was with me in Tunisia, a nation that risks financial default, which would not help us in dealing with this issue. The European Union has made its presence felt, it is working and I am optimistic about the fact that an agreement can soon be reached. 

Europe must also rethink itself.
Enlargement is discussed a lot at the moment. Italy firmly supports what, in my view, is not enlargement but rather reunification. Enlargement towards the western Balkans, and not only. Discussions on enlargement also lead the European Union as it is today to ask itself questions about the rules governing how it works. We should perhaps rethink those rules before we open ourselves up. I don’t believe the priority is to rethink the rules. I believe the issue is rethinking the priorities.

The more of us there are and the more I believe it will be necessary to apply a principle provided for by the Treaties that, until now, has probably been applied the least. That principle is subsidiarity. Brussels should not deal with things that Rome or Vienna can do better, and Rome or Vienna should not do things on their own that only Brussels can do. I think we have to reason together and understand together that Europe must focus its strategic attention on the major issues, which have sometimes been secondary in the past: strategic autonomy, competitiveness, the single market, security, defending borders, the energy transition, the digital transition, continental foreign policy.
Europe has the task of setting goals and, on these matters, it has the task of providing the tools to achieve them. I do not believe, however, that Europe’s role needs to be concerned with regulating every single aspect of citizens’ daily lives, because that is something that nation states can do better themselves, as they know those citizens better, also in order to defend each nation’s specific characteristics. Let’s take the example of the energy transition, and also on this I very much agree with what the Governor said: we of course agree with the objectives of the energy transition, but we are asking for technological neutrality. Without prejudice to these objectives, I believe that, strategically, the most effective choice we can make is to leave the possibility to invest in different technologies to reach the goals in question, considering Europe’s various specific characteristics and also the variety of our economic systems. Not only to advance European technology but also because, as the Governor correctly said, environmental sustainability must go hand in hand with economic and social sustainability. In other words, yes, we must defend nature, but with people inside.
The European Union has set itself this great challenge, which we agree with, in relation to which we must have very clear ideas when defining instruments and rules.

I am saying this also with a view to the future Stability and Growth Pact, because if the European Union sets itself strategic goals, and those goals are the green transition, the digital transition and greater autonomy regarding, for example, security, then the investments needed to reach these goals must obviously be taken into consideration in the governance rules we give ourselves. The strategy for supply issues must also be clear, because if we stake everything on electric solutions, but we don’t have the key components for their production, then this would mean simply replacing one dependency with another, choosing to depend on nations that are yet to make important progress on the ecological transition. These are the issues that I believe must be discussed together; in short, we need politics. We need politics to allow Europe to succeed in being a political giant, not a bureaucratic giant. 

Now is the time, because it does not depend on us, it depends on the challenges that history is placing before us. In the end, destiny challenges us, as a beautiful Italian song once said, “to push us to be proud of ourselves”. We are called upon to face this time, to address this time, with our heads held high and with dignity; we are called upon to make all these reflections. This brings me back to what I was saying before: this is the time for politics, the time for Europe to finally succeed in being a political giant.

When you come to a place like this, or when you go to the Abbey of Montecassino (the Italian equivalent), it really feels like you’re sitting on the shoulders of a giant. When you understand that you’re sitting on a giant’s shoulders, you perhaps then realise that, in the end, you can maybe  overcome those obstacles that seemed insurmountable. The European civilisation can take on those obstacles; an organisation cannot, rules cannot, bureaucrats cannot, but the European civilisation can. We must not forget this if we want to come out of this difficult situation stronger. 

Thank you.

[Courtesy translation]