A message from confidence, an appeal to be made courage to face the final part of the path that still remains to be done in order to finally emerge from the longest post-war economic crisis and complete the reforms that have in any case been started. “To all Italians” Giorgio Napolitano sent her his end of the year greeting tonight.
A greeting "special and a little different from the past" because, he himself says, "I'm about to leave my job". The president does not indicate a date for his now imminent resignation (after January 13 when Italy concludes the semester at the helm of Europe), but clearly says I believe I can no longer continue”. And so his end-of-year greeting becomes a farewell almost two years after he was forced, by the substantial blockage resulting from the elections, to accept a second job that he had hitherto rejected decisively.
Since then many things have changed and the president gives an account, as he has done several times in recent times, of the improvements made by Italy both on an economic level and on that of political stability and reforms. Reforms on which, he recalled just before Christmas, it is permissible to "discuss but not distort them". The budget is positive in many respects, says Napolitano, taking account of the recovery of the economy seriously underway and with much less political fibrillation than in the recent past. Italy is in better shape than two years ago but not all problems have been completely resolved yet: the "pathologies" to be tackled are above all unemployment and corruption. “We need to clean up the corrosive rot in our society” says the president.
And it is here that Napolitano is sent to "not give in to dismay, to the fear of distrust". And to give substance to this invitation, he recalls "some Italians to be proud of" such as Fabiola Gianotti called to direct Cerne or Samantha Cristoforetti or Fabrizio, the doctor infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone. All examples “to be proud of”. "Let's give it our all" is the appeal that the president addresses to the Italians. Leveraging on strengths: young people, research, innovative entrepreneurship. A mix that supported by reforms adequate can really relaunch Italy and make it win the necessary shot. “The theme of the reforms necessary to determine suitable conditions for the development of investments, for the creation of new jobs, for greater productivity and competitiveness of our economies – he said a few days ago in his greeting to the institutions – but has now taken on precise contours, a 'wide concrete articulation. And in this sense we need to consider the reform program focused on by President Renzi and his government. Reforms on which every political force could measure itself, without preconditions and in terms of comparison between seriously sustainable visions and approaches. It is a vast programme, to be spread over the overall time that the government itself wanted to allocate itself: but which gave a sense of which change had become indispensable, and no longer avoidable or postponeable".
It's time to say goodbye, after 9 years at the Quirinale and to thank all those Italians from whom I have received support and personal affection".
