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September 15, 2021 "The pandemic has strongly affected us, amidst grief and suffering, and has made our common vulnerability evident; a paradigm of the many global problems that none of our countries is in a position to face alone". This is what the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, said in the first working session of the Arraiolos summit on the theme "European Union on the path to strategic autonomy: responsibility and opportunity", in a summary of the intervention released by the press office of the Quirinale.



"The pandemic - added the head of state - has pushed us to prepare new tools, acting quickly, to respond to the expectations of Europeans who asked for protection and support. Next Generation is not just a resilience and recovery plan but a long-term program term towards a double transition, green and digital. It is about building our future. Next Generation is the strategy. The path to achieve it is the autonomy of the Union. To bring this perspective to life, considerable investments will be needed, both in the industrial sector and in the requalification of the workforce; investments that no country alone can put in place. The double transition, green and digital, would be enough to understand that it is aenterprise from which a Union will emerge at the base of which will be shared sovereignty. This is, moreover - it seems to me - the only way to save and maintain our sovereignties without them becoming, if isolated, illusory ".



"Conference opportunity to complete construction sites or building collapses"

"The Conference on the future of the Union represents a great historic occasion. We must not reduce it to a dull moment of ordinary administration - continues the Head of State - We must commit ourselves - without hesitation and without untouchable issues - to complete the many 'open yards' of our integration. Economic and monetary union, effective fiscal capacity, a true social pillar ".



"We need

strategic autonomy with shared sovereignty"

"We cannot ignore the fact that the world - and our neighborhood - is experiencing serious tensions. In recent weeks we have seen the situation in Afghanistan worsen. Even closer to us the crises do not subside: from Syria to the Eastern Mediterranean; unresolved Ukrainian question to the alarming situation in Belarus. All this places us in front of choices that concern both the internal and external dimensions of the European Union "explains Mattarella.



"On the one hand - underlines the head of state - it is necessary to reflect on what the shared interests of the Union are and what is needed to protect them, to achieve effective strategic autonomy. On the other hand, we must define the role that the Union must exercise in international community: how can we be incisive in affirming the effective multilateralism that we have been indicating for years in our external action; how to project, even beyond our borders, the values ​​and principles on which Europe is founded. together this year we have made significant progress. The crises have taught us how the protection of our sovereignty necessarily passes through the defense and development of shared sovereignty in the Union ".



"EU,strategic compass to be protagonists "

"It is therefore inevitable to define what has been called the 'strategic compass' to make Europe a leading player and not a supporting actor in the international community, outlining a strategic perspective within the framework of which the security policy is framed ". The President of the Republic then returns to urge the path of the EU's common foreign security and defense policy, on the very day when the President of the Commission Ursula Von der Leyen proposed "a European Defense Union" that will expand cooperation also in the field of intelligence.



"I think it can be said that the Union cannot remain in its current conditions: either its building is completed or there is a risk that it will fail, with all that it has given us, of peace, of rights, of prosperity", said the President of the Republic. "This need also recalls the definition of a common foreign policy and the joint development of capabilities in the security and defense sector", reiterated the Head of State for the third time in a few days, after underlining how "the case of Afghanistan - how a few years ago, the still open case of Syria - plastically portrayed an incomplete Union that inevitably needs to build - and I add quickly - its own autonomous credibility in the field of international relations ". 



For Mattarella "also in this vision, the Union is in full complementarity with NATO, strengthening its role as a security producer. Increasing our capabilities, making the Union a more credible actor is important for Europe and, I would like to add, it is also the case for the United States, in a world increasingly characterized by the leading role of major international players. The effective presence of the European Union among them strengthens the transatlantic relationship also in dialogue with other interlocutors ".