Reducing public debt is an “unavoidable necessity”. The President of the Republic said so Sergio Mattarella opening the 50th edition of the Cernobbio Forum organized by Thea Group. The Head of State, speaking via connection, explained that "on the debt front, Italy has paid more interest than France and Germany together, and yet it is a reliable payer" and underlined that the trend of interest rates "is a questionable thermometer" and “Italy is an honorable debtor with a thirty-year history, annual primary government surpluses and a public debt that has grown largely since 1992, mainly due to interest payments”.
“A simple question: the external or rather internal constraint, as it would be more correct to say, derives from the rules or from the debt? It deserves a reflection that questions the debt situation of the countries of the Union and urges to systematize, in fiscal and economic terms, what today is entrusted to the European Central Bank alone", continued the number one of the Quirinale. "The issue - he added - is not purely financial but constitutes a civil, social and democratic issue, intersecting the issues of economic freedom and equality of citizens and the international credibility of a State”.
“There is still a long way to go giving rationality to a government bond market that also takes into account the situation of family wealth", said Mattarella. "A European dimension - he continued - could build truth. Not an invitation to neglect the debt, which must be reduced, but an invitation to complete the European financial building".
Mattarella in Cernobbio: “There is no need to be afraid of reforms”
“Europe is unfinished”, said the President of the Republic, recalling the “recent lucid choices of the von Der Leyen commission following the pandemic”. These are “significant choices of discernment” which resulted in the “bold debt policies with Next Generation EU”.
"There is no need to be afraid of reforms, to look forward, to imagine a Europe that is increasingly perfected in its architecture and increasingly inclusive of those peoples, such as those of the Western Balkans, who have long aspired to participate in this adventure", said Mattarella during his speech.
Mattarella: “Disconcerting criticism of EU choices when they come from the protagonists”
According to the Head of State, "the choices that are sometimes the subject of controversy at local level, disconcerting when they come from protagonists which have taken part in these steps, are not the result of regulations imposed by obscure powers, but are rather agreed upon at Community level between national governments, the Commission, the European Parliament with participatory and transparent procedures".
“The criticisms levelled at the European project want it, from time to time, as a mere consolatory utopia, fruit of the suffering of the Second World War, or sometimes they define it as a functional expression of a further step in the development model typical of international capitalist globalization". "The legacy of the steps that have been taken can be summarized - if we pay attention to the contemporary debate present in some European countries - between the consideration of membership of the Union as a constraint, sometimes suffocating, for those who have joined it, or as an opportunity, perhaps the only one for our continent, placed in a world – the BRICS teach us – increasingly made up of giants”, underlined the President of the Republic.
“They are re-emerging in public opinion, they are present, impulses that imagine, without reason, a future fruit of nostalgia of a past that has instead often reserved for us tragedies. Each generation is called to fight against ghosts that hope for oblivion in order to re-emerge in new guise,” continued Mattarella. “It is up to the forces of civil society, in their entirety, to be aware that defending the framework of the civilization in which they live, and which they contribute to defining, is a task that not only interests them but concerns them.”
Zelensky, Meloni and Orban in Cernobbio
The Ukrainian President is expected to arrive at the Cernobbio Forum Volodymyr Zelensky is confirmed his presence with a post on X. “I will be in Italy for the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum, for scheduled meetings with representatives of Italian businesses,” he wrote, adding that “The negotiation will also take place with the Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, Giorgia Meloni, added". The Prime Minister will be present in Cernobbio on Saturday 7 September, while today it is the turn of the Hungarian leader and current President of the Council of the European Union Viktor Orban. Asked if he would meet Zelensky, Orbán replied: “I hope he will be here.”
