Turning to the title of the inaugural address of this year’s World Economic Forum “Leading against all odds” - let me say that I never doubted that taking the rein of a government in the midst of a financial turmoil, and without a genuine political majority, was going to be an uphill struggle.

I have governed with the strong conviction that leadership is the opposite of short termism. Short termism unfortunately exist today both in national politics and in European politics. Short termism means that Italy in the past decade did not use the opportunity of the membership of the euro zone to do reforms and reach a lower debt to GDP ratio. Italy wasted a significant primary surplus and lived on the illusions that we could promise change without ever delivering any real reforms. This is what one can describe as “promising reforms and ending up with taxes”. And with debt. And with a sovereign debt crisis.

Italy had failed to take on the challenges of globalisation, demographic change and technological innovation. It chose the policy of status quo and procrastination. It chose the illusion that when the world is changing, one can stay the same. The costs of inaction were dumped on our children and our grandchildren until the moment of truth arrived.

We tried hard over this year to reverse this way of doing policy. Italy implemented in 12 months what the IMF – and I wish to recognize here and to pay tribute to her for her leadership, Christine Lagarde – called an “ambitious and wide ranging agenda which is a model to fiscal stabilization and growth enhancing reforms”. We worked to tackle deep rooted structural weaknesses, to let outsiders in. We did not go for the low-hanging fruits, but we aimed for the big targets: for example in the area of liberalization we want and introduce the separation of the gas transmission from the gas distribution. Or the abolition of the cosy interlocking directorates that hinder competition in the financial sector . We introduced more freedom in the retail market and created more jobs opportunities in the legal and other professions.