23 Gennaio 2013

Mr President of the Swiss Confederation, Ueli Maurer

Mrs Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde

Mr Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Dear Klaus,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great privilege for me to take the floor in this plenary session and I want to thank the World Economic Forum and its director, Klaus Schwab for giving Italy a place of honour in this year’s programme.

I take this not as a gesture of kindness for a soon outgoing Prime Minister, but rather as a sign of interest for the policies of fiscal responsibility, structural reforms Italy has been following over the past year and for the choices it will have to make to shape up its future.

First, let me say that I feel the circumstances in which I am addressing you today are very different from the ones of 14 months ago, when I took office. When I had my first international meetings, I used to remember the words that Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi, the leader of Italy’s postwar reconstruction, used when he took the floor at the Paris Peace Conference after the Second World War: “I feel that everything but your personal sympathy is against me”.

Today, the atmosphere around Italy has changed. I do not only feel your personal sympathy. I can feel that Italy has gained back respect and confidence in its ability to bounce back. I see a very concrete interest of the business and investors for the opportunities Italy can offer for economic growth and for innovation. I could capture that this morning in my dialogue with the Business and the Investors communities.

I think this change is a reward for the action taken by Government with the support of the Parliament. Most of all it must be a reward for all the Italian citizens, which over the past year understood the need for change. With their work, with their effort, with determination to react to hardship they helped the country turn its back to the past and come out of the crisis stronger. I want here today to pay a tribute to the Italian citizens, to their resilience, to their maturity and I want Italian citizens to be aware of the fact that their contribution through a difficult time has not been negligible also for the improvement of the conditions and all the perceptions of the European Union and all the euro zone. Italy and the European Union are really two parts of same thing and I never want use over the last 14 months the argument vis a vis my fellows citizens asking for their sacrifices sorry but Europe asks us to do so. I always fell and I made the point of this we must to this in our interest and in the interest of future generations of Italians and by the way whilst Europe also recommends us to do so.