Ravasi: 'Find the strength to be open to the words of the young'

"I am the grandfather of this festival for anagraphic reasons. For a certain period of my life I was dedicated to the culture of the Near East, regions streaked with blood. In these languages of the land there is a curious characteristic: there is no future tense. Only the imperfect is used because there is a firm belief that in order to build something of the future, one must take into account what one already has. That is why you look at the imperfect. And I believe that we have to speak and look at the future with wonder'. This was stated by Gianfranco Ravasi, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Culture, at the opening ceremony of the 21st edition of the Trento Festival of Economics organised by Il Sole 24Ore. "Faced with impressive scenes such as those of the Flotilla, it is even more impressive to see a well-known minister of Israel with the noose as his emblem and after one of his bills on the death penalty passed, with all his acolytes celebrating with champagne, there is degradation of humanity. Soon the Pope's encyclical will come out, whose title is already significant: Magnifica Humanitas. But it is also terribilis Humanitas, the tendency is to lose hope'.

"The University of Trento is part of this territory and became part of the territory's history over 60 years ago. It represents an opening opportunity for the territory and the Festival is the most important event from this point of view. It is an event in which we as a university participate because of the scientific content and by bringing the attention and interest of our students. I believe that making them participate means listening to them, giving them a voice and listening to them to understand what their expectations and ideas of the future are, which is theirs'. So said Flavio Deflorian, Rector of the University of Trento, at the opening ceremony of the 21st edition of the Trento Festival of Economics organised by Il Sole 24Ore. "At a time of uncertainty, anchoring ourselves to culture and rationality so as not to be at the mercy of gut and sometimes self-destructive reasoning, being a witness, and this is the University's task, to what knowledge can bring to everyday life is our task. Also the fact of having a festival that addresses economic issues - and not only them - with a scientific and rigorous approach that is at the same time usable, combines the ability to involve everyone in the debate and do so on a scientific basis'.

'We had set ourselves the objective of putting the involvement of young people at the centre, we wanted to do this in an active manner' and 'involvement does not just mean stimulating their ability to listen, but trying to listen to their voice and their instances'. This was said by Federico Silvestri, managing director of Sole 24 Ore, at the opening ceremony of the Trento Festival of Economics organised by Sole 24 Ore with Trentino Marketing and entitled this year 'From the market to new powers. The hopes of young people'. 'When we talk about the future,' added Silvestri, 'we can be interpreters of trajectories, but the future belongs to the young people. We have tried to observe this central element'. Silvestri also quoted director Fabio Tamburini, emphasising that 'this is the festival of Trento and the people of Trento' and the 'Sole 24 Ore Group has the honour of making a significant contribution'.

"Trentino is a territory of autonomy, innovation and research, but it has not always been so. It has also been a territory of poverty and migration. Here there is a strong essence of community and the territory has been able to grow. I believe that the theme of youth chosen for the Festival goes in this direction'. This was stated by Maurizio Fugatti, President of the Autonomous Province of Trento, at the opening ceremony of the 21st edition of the Trento Festival of Economics organised by Il Sole 24Ore. 'Today,' he added, 'having a panel of national and international speakers from the worlds of economics, industry and diplomacy here to discuss current issues is a great source of pride for our community, and we know that the Festival's desire to grow is growing. It is a great pride'.

'I feel proud of the great work done by the Sole 24 Ore group, Trento and the whole territory,' because the Festival of Economics is 'a marriage that is succeeding very well, a virtuous example for Italia, an event that brings culture and wealth, an example for many other territories'. Thus Maria Carmela Colaiacovo, president of the Il Sole 24 Ore group, speaking from the stage of the Festival's opening ceremony. It is, she continued, a 'very particular period' in which economic choices and decisions are linked to 'very rapid changes, also in terms of technology and energy'. And in the face of 'disturbing and difficult scenarios', here in Trento we wanted to create 'an 'open salon' with different skills, intelligence and visions confronting each other, particularly aimed at young people'. This is because 'the Sun feels the responsibility to foster critical thinking in them, which goes beyond demagogy and fashions'.

"We can be proud of the Europe we have built together, our Union is a superpower of rights, the best place in the world in which to live, work and raise a family". This was said by Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, during her participation, by video link, in the opening event of the Trento Festival of Economics organised by Sole 24 Ore with Trentino Marketing.

The European project is 'an evolving project, it is not perfect, and in this increasingly unstable world, young Europeans point to the cost of living as the biggest challenge'. Europe 'must do more to provide concrete answers, lower energy prices, strengthen competitiveness, complete our single market so that ideas can become reality'.

"Life is made up of beautiful moments to remember and I hope you will put Festival among them, but also less beautiful and dramatic moments. I would like this edition to be dedicated to the memory of two personalities who made an important contribution to the event: Giampaolo Pedrotti and Edmund Phleps'. With these words Fabio Tamburini, editor of Il Sole 24 Ore, officially opened the 21st edition of the Trento Festival of Economics. "Giampaolo Pedrotti was the head of the press office of the province of Trento. We worked for five years and what I remember is an extraordinary humanity. What struck me was his humanity and his smile. Unfortunately, he left us in a dramatic way, arriving at the end of the line well in advance,' he said. "The second person I would like to remember is Edmund Phleps, a great economist. I first met him through an intermediary. Six years ago, we had to make some important choices to understand what direction to give to the Trento Festival. For me, it was also an important confrontation with Fitoussi, with whom I discussed what the Festival should be. Fitoussi was the one who broke the first spear for the involvement of Phleps, which was never lacking'.

'Artificial intelligence is not yet able to improve productivity as it has done at the data level'. Therefore, 'if you want to increase productivity in Italia you have to do many other things: take action and roll up your sleeves'. This was said by Christopher Pissarides, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in economics, during the event 'Job Demand and Skills in the Age of Artificial Intelligence', which took place as part of the Trento Festival of Economics, organised by the Il Sole 24 ORE Group and Trentino Marketing on behalf of the Autonomous Province of Trento and with the collaboration of the Municipality and University of Trento.

Although, according to some economists, the use of AI will boost productivity a lot, 'there is no concrete evidence', says Pissarides, explaining that the implementation of artificial intelligence 'in the manufacturing sector will be more oriented towards enhancing human capabilities than in services'. Therefore, 'in countries like Germany and Italia there might be an improvement', but overall 'it would not affect the bulk of the economy.

While companies continue to perform well, socially wages do not go up. And that is an inconvenience. The real problem at the moment is wages. The problem is not production right now but the distribution of wealth. The solutions? You have to ask the politicians, I am one of those who produce wealth, I am not a politician'. So said Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone on the sidelines of his speech to one of the panels at the Trento Festival of Economics.

"50% of our employees are women and 30% are young people under 30". Alessandro Benetton opened his discussion with the director of Il Sole 24 Ore Fabio Tamburini with this figure during the 2026 edition of theTrentino Festival of Economics. Chairman of Edizione since 2022 and, from March 2026, of the infrastructure parent company Mundys, Benetton linked those numbers to a precise choice: "An intern with us at Mundys earns 1,200 euros a month" because a young person joining the company should not be considered "a cost, but an investment".

The theme of the meeting was whether Italia is really a country for young people. Benetton avoided a purely negative answer: 'We must be convinced that Italia can be a country for young people'. But he also pointed to a clear divide between potential and confidence. On the one hand, he recalled that Italy ranks fifth in Europe for young people interested in the challenge of generative artificial intelligence. On the other, he cited a study carried out by the UNHATE foundation, dedicated to young people, together with Professor Mauro Magatti, of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, according to which only 17% of young people look forward to the future that awaits them.

"It is not enough to imagine a country for young people, we must imagine a bridge between generations". Lavinia Biagiotti Cigna, president and managing director of Biagiotti Group, summarised in this way one of the key points of the opening panel on the first day of the Trent Economics Festival entitled 'Italia is not a country for young people, how can it become one'. A debate that brought together business, university, welfare and training, with speeches by, in addition to Biagiotti Cigna, Marina Brambilla, Rector of the University of Milan, Alessandro Molinari, CEO and General Manager of Itas Mutua, and Diana Bracco, President and CEO of the Bracco Group.

The latter defined the relationship between Italia and the new generations as 'a real emergency', linked to the denatality, the demographic crisis and the difficulty of getting those who go abroad to return home. "We need competitive entry salaries, support for parenthood, crèches and parental leave", she said, also pointing to research, start-ups and university spin-offs as decisive areas. He then recalled the Bracco Foundation's "I will become" project, with "over 4 million euro since 2012" and more than "2,500 young people" reached.

When car production in Italia 'reaches the level of 1955, that is, 70 years ago, it means that there has been a Caporetto. And so we need to see how we can emerge from this Caporetto to try to return to the automotive market and do so in its own right, because Italia has always been at the forefront in the car business". So said Gian Primo Quagliano, chairman of the Promotor Research Centre.

"A profound change is needed in the car manufacturers. The generals of the car manufacturers have already changed, but the generals of the EU, who are the ones who have imposed this dramatic situation on us, have not," said Quagliano, explaining that "a political general Diaz needs to emerge who will bring forward, at EU level, a profound revision of what has been established for the energy transition".

"Today, Europe is facing a very important transformation situation. It is probably the biggest transformation situation in the last 100-150 years and it presents us with very important challenges. The industrial model is changing, the mobility model is changing, global balances are also shifting'.

This was said by Antonella Bruno, managing director of Stellantis Italy.

Young people do participate in political and community life, but in different ways from the traditional ones. The problem is not their distance from participation: the problem is to understand whether we institutions are really capable of listening to them. We must ask boys and girls what they want and build public policies together with them'. This is what the Mayoress of Florence Sara Funaro said,
"Behind the distancing from political participation there is a very clear message from citizens: 'You are not solving my problems and you do not represent me'. This is where we have to start again,' the mayor added. 'Top-down decisions are the best way to alienate young people. Real involvement comes when people feel part of the decision-making process'.

"For us the priority is safety, understood as infrastructure safety, traveller safety, worker safety". So said the administrator of the Autostrade per l'Italia Group, Arrigo Giana, speaking at the "Infrastructure and Priorities" panel.
"Starting from this priority," continued Giana, "the implementation of the extensive motorway network regeneration programme is progressing at full speed: in the first quarter of 2026 alone, 525 million euro was invested between maintenance and modernisation of the infrastructure, in line with a 2.5 billion euro annual plan.
Reassessing the strategic role of the motorway network in the country's economic and logistics system, Giana added: "84% of logistics continue to choose the road for their journeys and 80% of Italian manufacturing workers work less than 20 kilometres from a motorway tollbooth: these figures confirm how fundamental the network continues to be for the competitiveness of the territories, the mobility of people and the logistics of goods. The motorway network has been, is and will remain the mainstay of road transport in Italia'. A

mple space was finally dedicated to technological innovation and the use of artificial intelligence in mobility management: 'Our goal,' concluded Giana, 'is to build infrastructures capable of adapting to changes and anticipating them. In this context, technology is an enabling factor for security and network efficiency. Our programme aims to guarantee another fifty years of life to the country's infrastructures, we are looking to the future of mobility and the new generations'.

"Banks are an important reference point for small and medium-sized companies, but also for large ones. If we replace and depower them, if we take away their power and invite companies to go elsewhere, it is clear that the Italian economy could suffer'. This was pointed out by Lando Sileoni, secretary general of Fabi, speaking of the fallout of the Capital Law.
"The reform also has political objectives, unwritten, but they exist because there are many interests and I would not want it to become a sort of big brother of European finance - he continued - the European banking union is struggling to take off because of Germany, does not want to take on the other banks in difficulty, but at the same time there is a problem that concerns, in Italia in particular, how we will manage to protect small and medium-sized enterprises".

In today's complex world, 'we need to find a path to not split the West, which President Trump tries to split every day'. This is the message coming from Marco Tronchetti Provera, Pirelli's executive vice-president, during the 'War and Peace' meeting with Ferruccio de Bortoli.

In Europe, 'we have to find a way, however much we may not like it, to stay in a negotiating phase with the United States, to keep them engaged,' Tronchetti argues. This means 'having the strength to stay together', because 'we Europeans are a happy island and we must fight to stay that way'. Tronchetti cites as an example the focus on social protection, which 'does not exist anywhere else'. But to 'defend all this, we have to defend our borders, in the technical sense of the term, but also by sitting at the tables'.

"Regaining ownership of the Italian stock exchange would be a detriment for Italia", the way instead is to have a single market platform "to have a single European financial market".
This was said by Economy Undersecretary Federico Freni.

'Today the financial market infrastructure in Europe is divided between Euronext and Deutsche Boerse. When Euronext and Deutsche Boerse come to an agreement, there will be a single European financial market infrastructure,' said Freni. 'Re-appropriating, assuming it is possible and I don't think so, the ownership of Borsa Italiana would be detrimental to Italia, because today a single EU financial infrastructure is the fastest way to have a single European financial mmarket that will still be small compared to the American one, small compared to the Asian markets, but will at least have a chance to compete.

"We will arrive at the Council of Ministers on Friday to invest hundreds of millions of euro in support of both excise duties and road transport, but we will not be able to go any further with internal resources alone, so I think the Italian request to derogate the Stability and Growth Pact will be inevitable, asking us to do for energy what we can already do for defence and arms". This was stated by Matteo Salvini, deputy prime minister and minister of Infrastructure and Transport, speaking at a conference as part of the Festival dell'Economia organised by Il Sole24Ore. According to Salvini, the European Commission's approach is 'slow, obtuse, ideological, bureaucratic and out-of-touch'.

"We are working on the possibility of reviewing cohesion resources and, where possible, in a final phase, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Thirdly, there is the discussion on the issue of investment to be allocated also to energy, which is currently ongoing,' he said. This was said by Raffaele Fitto, executive vice-president for cohesion and reforms of the European Commission, at the end of his speech at the panel 'Europe and territorial cohesion, the right to remain living in the place everyone calls home' at the Trento Festival of Economics.

"We try to set a good example". In the Group, '50 per cent of those employed are women and 30 per cent are young people under 30. And the economic results are not lacking. We have decided that an intern must earn at least 1,200 euro, because we have to change our perspective and look at a young person entering society not as a cost but as an investment'. So said Alessandro Benetton, chairman of Edizione and Mundys, interviewed by Fabio Tamburini, editor-in-chief of Il Sole 24 Ore, at the Trento Festival of Economics. All updates from the Festival are available on the dedicated page.

"The world has changed," explains Luigi Federico Signorini, "and I fear that tariffs now represent the new normal. "A process that has been going on for a long time since the 'first' Trump," adds Alessandro Fontana, "which calls into question the possibility for companies to produce anywhere in the world."

Assessments, those of the economist and former director general of the Bank of Italia and director of the Confindustria study centre, that give a sense of the pervasiveness of the changes taking place in terms of trade, a theme to which one of the first events of the Trento Festival of Economics is dedicated: 'Trump's tariffs, much ado about nothing'.

"The first thing to be done to make Italy a country for young people is to restore hope, confidence and pride to the new generations. We need to make young people understand that the country is investing in them, creating a cultural climate that makes, for example, meritocracy a perceptible principle and not just a declared one". This was stated by Diana Bracco, President and CEO of the Bracco Group and President of the Bracco Foundation.
"That gyoung Italians gain experience abroad is fine, but they must be able to return. We need," he emphasised, competitive entry salaries, support for parenthood, crèches and parental leave that allow people to build a balanced family and professional life.
We also need measures to promote innovation, research and entrepreneurship, because a country for young people must also fund start-ups and university spin-offs".
"I would say to our young people, however, not only to ask themselves what the country should do for them, but also what they themselves can do for Italia - of which they should be proud because we live in a unique place rich in history and beauty. It is important to strongly reaffirm, therefore, after years of laxity and confusion, the value of knowledge and commitment and ofpersonal sacrifice. That knowledge obtained by continuous training that allows us to combine memory and innovation, knowledge and critical spirit. I quote in this regard the beautiful expression used byPresident of the Republic Sergio Mattarella in the Lectio magistralis he gave recently at the University of Salamanca: 'Knowledge is the wind that the world needs today'.

The task of changing things is therefore first and foremost up to young people. They are the ones who must build the future with a spirit of initiative and with the courage to get involved and to face challenges and failures: I believe they have all the resources to do so'.

"For the future, we know that resources will be scarce, but a change of pace is needed in the way the planning and execution phase is managed. Then we need tools, because what was valid thirty years ago is no longer valid today. We have proposed an instrument, which is thecommunity cooperative'. This was said by the president of Confcooperative, Maurizio Gardini. "For three years there has been a proposal for a law on community cooperatives still in the drawer," Gardini recalled.
"If in Italia there is a demographic winter, in the inland areas we are witnessing a demographic glaciation. Infrastructure is fundamental for the survival before the development of inland areas, which are too often without fibre, without important road and rail connections. In many areas the fixed telephone line no longer even works. This is unfeasible. We must manage resources better. Historically, Italia has not been a champion in the allocation of Community resources either in terms of planning or timing. What good things have been done with the NRP we owe to ministers Fitto and Foti, who have involved the intermediate bodies that have given a more finalised contribution,' Gardini added.

"Cities are governable, including Rome, we have shown that it is possible to govern a complex city like Rome, which was in a very bad state'. This was said by Roberto Gualtieri, Mayor of Rome speaking at the conference 'Governare le città.
The challenges facing cities today are many: "cities have to adapt to climate change, govern migration, govern technological challenges such as artificial intelligence"
However, "despite the fact that the Constitution provides for it, we have a very low level of tariff autonomy. We have paradoxical levels of centralism. Public transport is by definition loss-making' and 'structurally underfunded'.

"There are so many things that without breaking the state's accounts could be improved to help cities be service providers but also innovation providers for the whole country.

"A year ago the imposition of tariffs was a potential catastrophic risk for the world economy, then months passed and it seemed much ado about nothing. Then months passed and today the concerns are again very acute, but for different reasons: for the potential effects of the wars, particularly the one in Iran, on growth, inflation and energy supplies'.

This was said by Luigi Federico Signorini, former managing director of the Bank of Italy, who said: "This is the first time I have participated in a debate as a freelance economist, now I am a private citizen".
With respect to tariffs, which "are also leading to a redirection of trade flows, interaction and competition", the challenge for Italia and Europe is "to resist the impulse to respond defensively with restrictive and protectionist policies".
"We will have to change," Signorini said, "some attitudes, including regulatory ones, in our Union. "But now," he concluded, "the number one challenge is different, international security