Palazzo Montecitorio 03/02/2015

Address by the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, to the Parliament on the day he was sworn in


Madam Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Madam Deputy Speaker of the Senate, Members of Parliament and Regional Delegates,
I would like to address a respectful greeting to this Assembly and to the parliamentarians who represent the sovereignty of our people and give voice to the Regions represented here.
Allow me to express my thanks to the Speaker of the Chamber, Ms Laura Boldrini and to the Deputy Speaker of the Senate, Ms Valeria Fedeli.

I would like to thank all those who have participated in the vote.
Let me dedicate an especially obsequious thought to my predecessors, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Giorgio Napolitano, who served in office with exemplary commitment and dedication.
To them I would like to convey the fond gratitude of all Italians.
I would like to extend a particularly heart-felt thanks to President Napolitano who, in a difficult moment, accepted to shoulder the onus of a second term of office.
I also want to pay a tribute to the Constitutional Court, the highest authority in charge of guaranteeing our Founding Charter, to the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, the Magistrates' Governing Body, a bulwark of independence, and to all the judiciary.
I am fully aware of the responsibility carried by the task assigned to me.
First and foremost, the task of representing national unity: the unity that indissolubly links our territories, from North to South.
But also the unity reflecting the expectations and aspirations of our fellow citizens. This unity risks becoming difficult, frail, remote.
Everyone must concentrate their efforts on overcoming the difficulties of Italians and on meeting their expectations.
The long crisis, which has stretched beyond all limits, has inflicted deep wounds on Italy's social fabric and put to the test the resilience of its production system.
It has increased injustices.
It has engendered new forms of poverty.

It has produced marginalisation and solitude.
Anguish has seeped into many families because difficulties have deprived their children, boys and girls alike, of their future.
Young people's joblessness, especially in the South, loss of jobs, exclusion, the difficulties that are met in guaranteeing essential social rights and services. These are the points on our challenging agenda that will become the yardstick of the institutions' closeness to the people.
We must be capable of preventing the economic crisis from affecting the principles and values underlying the social pact enshrined in the Constitution.

In order to overcome the crisis that has seriously sapped the Italian and European economy, we must achieve the long-awaited reversal of the economic cycle.

It is essential to support the consolidation of finances with a steep growth trend, especially in Europe.
During the semester of the Italian presidency of the Council of the European Union that has just closed, the Government - to which I would like to address a greeting, wishing them success - rightly pursued this strategy.
Today it is necessary to consolidate the constitutional convention that keeps the country unified by guaranteeing the fundamental rights and equal social dignity to all the citizens, obligating the Republic to remove any obstacle limiting liberty and equality.
The urgent need for institutional, economic and social reforms arises from the duty to give effective answers to our community, answers capable of meeting the challenges that we no face.

Our Country possesses energies that await to be put to effective use. I'm thinking of the youth who make an effort to improve their talents and would like to have them recognised.
I'm thinking of the small and medium-sized and large enterprises which, even amidst significant difficulties, find the courage to continue innovating and competing on international markets.
I'm thinking of the Public Administration, which has valuable competences but must apply constitutional principles by adjusting to the options offered by new technologies and to the sensibility of citizens, who call for participation, transparency, streamlined procedures and consistent decisions.

What we need is not a generic exhortation to look to the future but the persistent deployment of the resources offered by the Italian society.
To speak of national unity thus means giving the Country a new horizon of hope. In order to avoid turning this hope into an abstract exhortation, we must strengthen the bonds that hold our society together.
All the active forces of our communities, both at home and abroad, are called upon to take action.

I would like to extend a warm greeting to our fellow Italians living abroad and express my friendship to the numerous foreign communities living in our Country.
The roadmap to be followed by a united Country is the one indicated in our Constitution, when it underscores the role played by social groups, which are corollary to a full participation in public life.
The representation deficit has weakened and made ineffective the traditional instrument of participation while society forcefully gave life to new forms of expression which have already produced results that are traceable in policies and in the citizenry.

This Parliament too presents novelties and elements of change.
It has the highest percentage of women and a large number of young parliamentarians. It represents a great result that politics often overshadows with controversies and conflicts.

Young members of parliament bring the hopes and expectations of their peers into this hall. And they also express, with their criticisms and even outrage, the will to change.
I ask them in particular to assertively contribute to making our community truly national, without ever forgetting the essence of their parliamentary mandate. This means that in this hall, MPs do not represent only a segment of society or individual interests but all Italian citizens, as they are collectively at the service of the Country.

Each and every one of them is called upon to fully shoulder this responsibility.
The essential prerequisite to bridging the gap between Italians and Institutions is to understand politics as a service towards the common good and a collective heritage of which everyone holds a share.
We must re-establish a contact with all those Italian citizens that feel institutions to be distant and alien to them.

Democracy is not a once-and-for-all conquest but must be continuously lived out by adjusting to the formulas best suited to the changing times.
It is significant that my swearing in coincided with the near completion of a long process to bring about broad and radical reforms in the second part of the Constitution.
Without going into the detail of single solutions that fall under the competence of parliamentary sovereignty, I would like to express my wish that the process be completed in such a way as to upgrade our democracy.
Reform the Constitution in order to reinforce democratic process.
There is also the need to overcome the logic of making continuous exceptions to the procedural forms regulating the legislative process and balance the need to rule against compliance with the procedural rules that guarantee the correctness of parliamentary debate. Another issue that was repeatedly raised by President Napolitano is the priority of passing a new election law, as the Parliament has committed to do.
According to current custom, the role of the President of the Republic is normally seen as that of an umpire and the guarantor of the Constitution.

It is an effective image.
An umpire is in charge of strictly applying the rules. An umpire must and will be impartial.
The players must do their share and play by the rules.
The President of the Republic is the guarantor of the Constitution.
The most stringent guarantee of our Constitution lies in its enforcement; in living it out day by day.
Guaranteeing the Constitution means guaranteeing our children's right to an education in modern and safe classrooms and guaranteeing their right to a future.
It means acknowledging and enforcing the right to a job.

It means promoting widespread culture and the pursuit of excellence, also through the use of new technologies and by bridging the digital divide.
It means cherishing our environmental and artistic treasures.
It means rejecting war and promoting peace.
It means guaranteeing the rights of the ill.
It means having everybody contribute, with loyalty, to the expenses of the national community.
It means obtaining justice within a reasonably speedy timeframe.
It means acting so that women will not have to fear abuse or discrimination.
It means removing any barrier limiting the rights of disabled people.
It means supporting the family, society's key resource.
It means guaranteeing autonomy and pluralism in providing information, a bulwark of democracy.

It means commemorating the Resistenza and the sacrifice of the many who liberated Italy of Nazi-Fascism seventy years ago.
It means liberty. Liberty understood as the full development of civil rights, both social and economic, both personal and emotional.
Guaranteeing the Constitution means affirming and disseminating a strong feeling of legality: combating the mafia and corruption are absolute priorities.

Corruption has reached a level that is unacceptable.
It devours resources that could be allocated to citizens.
It impedes the correct enforcement of market rules.
It favours gangs and penalises the honest and skilful.

The present Pontiff, Pope Francis, whom I thank for the message of wishes he sent me, used very harsh words against the corrupt: «Men with good manners but bad habits».
The spread of mafias, old and new, in geographical areas that were historically immune to them, is alarming. It is a pervasive tumour that destroys hopes, imposes yokes and subjugation and encroaches on individual rights.
We must encourage the resolute action of the judiciary and of law enforcers, who often risk their lives in combating organised crime.
We have seen many heroes fighting mafias: I'm thinking of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, just to mention two.
In order to defeat the mafia we need a multitude of honest, competent and determined people. And political and administrative leaders capable of fulfilling their duty.

There are other risks that threaten our society.
International terrorism has launched its bloody challenge, spreading death and tragedy everywhere in the world and killing innocent victims.
We are horrified at the savage beheadings of hostages, by the wars and massacres in the Middle East and Africa, and by the tragic events in Paris.
Our Country, in a not too remote past, has repeatedly paid the price of hatred and intolerance. I want to recall a single name: Stefano Taché, who was killed in the cowardly terrorist attack on Rome's synagogue in October of 1982. He was only two years old. He was one of our children, an Italian child.
Practicing violence in the name of religion was long thought to be a closed chapter in the book of history. Whoever uses his creed in order to prevail, thus violating the fundamental human right of freedom of religion, must be condemned and fought back.

To consider the terrible challenge of fundamentalist terrorism as a clash between religions or civilisations would be a serious mistake.
The threat is much deeper and far-reaching. The attack is on the foundations of liberty, democracy, tolerance and coexistence.

Global threats need global reactions.
A phenomenon as serious as this cannot be fought by locking ourselves up inside nation States.
Hatemongers and the recruiters of murderers use the Internet and sophisticated communication systems that, by their very nature, escape the territorial dimension.
The international community must put all its resources into play.
In greeting the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Republic, I express the hope that we may establish a fruitful collaboration also in this direction.
Terrorism must be fought with firmness, intelligence and with a grain of salt. This challenging struggle cannot overlook security: the State must assure its citizens the right to lead a serene life, free from fear.
A feeling of hope spread over Europe at the end of World War II and at the fall of the Berlin wall. After the war it was the hope of liberty and recovery and after 1989 the hope of establishing democratic values.
In the new Europe, Italy affirmed its sovereignty; a safe haven but especially a place from which to take off again in an effort to meet global challenges. Today the European Union represents once again a frontier of hope and we must steadfastly re-launch the perspective of a full-fledged political Union.

The establishment of citizenship rights means consolidating the large European space of liberty, security and justice.
Wars, bombings, political, ethnical and religious persecutions and poverty and famine generate large flows of refugees.
Millions of individuals and families fleeing from their own homes seek safety and a future precisely in Europe, the stronghold of the rule of law and democracy.

And this is a serious and sorrowful humanitarian emergency that needs to see Europe more focused, committed and supportive.
Italy has done and is continuing to do its share and we are grateful to our players, at all operational levels, for their generous engagement in tackling this dramatic exodus.

At international level, the praiseworthy and essential peace-keeping action for which our military personnel is deployed in a range of missions, must be consolidated with a political, economic, social and cultural rebuilding action, without which any effort is bound to be nullified.

I would like to address a special thanks to the Armed Forces, which are increasingly an instrument of peace and an essential element of our foreign and security policies, and commemorate all those who lost their lives in the performance of their duty.

We must continue concentrating our utmost efforts in trying to find a positive and hasty solution to the sensitive incident involving our two Navy riflemen, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, and bring them back home once and for all.
I would also like to dedicate a thought to all the civilians engaged in the valuable work of providing cooperation and development aid, often in high-risk areas.

Of three Italians, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, Giovanni Lo Porto and Ignazio Scaravilli, who were abducted in difficult and ravaged lands, we have no news. I would like to express to them and to their families the closeness and solidarity of all the Italian people, hoping they may soon return to their homes.
Honourable Members of Parliament and Delegates,
For our people, the face of the Republic is the one we see in our everyday life: hospitals, the City Hall, schools, court houses, museums.
I hope that public offices and institutions might faithfully reflect the face of the Italian people: the carefree faces of children, the curious look on the face of teenagers.
The worried look on the face of lonely and distressed elderly people, the face of those who suffer, of the ill and their families, weighed down by their heavy burdens.
The face of young people looking for a job and the face of those who have lost it.
The face of whoever has had to close down his business because of the economic crisis and of those who continue to invest despite the crisis.
The face of those who generously dedicate their time to others.

The face of those who will not surrender, of those who fight injustices and of those seeking a comeback.
They tell the stories of women and men, children and elderly, with different political, cultural and religious opinions.
These faces and these stories narrate the history of a people that we would like to become ever freer, safer and more solidarity-oriented. A people truly feeling they belong to a community and who walk, with renewed hope, towards a future of tranquillity and peace.

Long live the Republic, long live Italy!