Good morning everyone,
Thanks to President Yoon and President Biden for the invitation to this third edition of the Summit for Democracy.
Democracy is one of the founding pillars of European and Western political thought. Yet, from ancient Greece to the present day, European and Western history has also been a perpetual ongoing struggle in defence of democratic values. A struggle often stemming from one condition: when one people has lived in a democracy for a long time, it is led to believe that democracy is something to be taken for granted, and not a valuable asset to be defended against pitfalls and worth fighting for. 
This is what we are experiencing today as well, with instability at international level and pitfalls running through our democratic systems. Pitfalls arising from different factors, many of which based on ideological visions. 
One of them holds that peoples are not mature enough to take big decisions, and that therefore democracy can only be understood as such an oligarchy, the governing of an élite. Another of these visions was devised by Roger Scruton, one of Europe's greatest philosophers, and is referred to as oikophobia, namely an aversion to one’s own home environment.
Unfortunately, often we are the first to no longer believe in ourselves and we are the first to deny what we are. And this has devastating effects; because how can we think that future generations will believe – as we do – in democracy if schools and universities teach underestimating our civilisation, which, in spite of a thousand difficulties and complex moments, has founded its identity on the values of freedom, equality and democracy?
Only if we return to believing in ourselves can we give new strength to our democracies. Only if we return to building our culture instead of wiping it out can we get our young people excited again and make them the protagonists of the future.
And this is what I think is the most important today: to defend our democracies.