Mattarella: 'Italy at Kiev's side, bilateral dynamics place the weak at the mercy of the strongest'

Speaking about the European Union, in his speech at the end-of-year greetings exchange ceremony with the diplomatic corps, President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella said: 'The free sharing of principles and rules is not a cage that constrains, but a support that protects, especially the weakest. It is not surprising that they are challenged by international corporations that expand by claiming they do not have to observe any rules: this would not be freedom but arbitrariness'.

"The European Union, one of the most successful experiences of peace between peoples and of democracy, was born and has grown in the constant search for peace, I repeat, and freedom, guaranteed, within its own sphere, on the basis of treaties freely entered into by the peoples of Europe; who have derived rights and prosperity from it. History teaches that, in international relations, purely bilateral dynamics place the weaker at the mercy of the stronger. It is not acceptable to pretend that those dynamics should once again be the measure of relations between free peoples,' said President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella in his speech at the end-of-year greetings exchange ceremony with the diplomatic corps.

"This is the fourth Christmas of war for the Ukrainian people. Russian attacks on cities and civil and energy infrastructures are multiplying. There are more and more civilian victims Europe and Italy remain firmly at the side of Ukraine and its people, with the goal of a fair, just and lasting peace that respects international law, Ukrainian independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security,' the President of the Republic continued.

"The international agenda appears full of conflicts, migration, protectionist measures that produce opposition. Its priorities need to be reformed: peace, development, equality, food security, combating poverty, climate change, cooperation in free trade. A world with a few predestined people sitting down to a banquet and many more destined to hope for a few crumbs is not acceptable,' Mattarella stressed at the ceremony.

"The generations that fought against nazi-fascism, colonialism and totalitarianism to claim freedom and rights by trying to create collaboration through the UN, the most ambitious attempt in history to give a framework of rules to international relations, risk seeing their sacrifices shattered. A system built to ensure peace and coexistence is in crisis when someone breaks it, believing that it is no longer functional to the prevalence of their own interests, which are sometimes unstable, and that these must prevail over the shared values and needs of other countries; it is in crisis when alleged and often fallacious security needs are invoked to alter the strategic balance," concluded the Head of State