I thank you very much for inviting me to attend this highly significant moment: the inauguration of the new head office of the Foreign Press Association.
While expressing my best wishes, may I add that I am delighted to see such a beautiful new home. I’m saying this as an honorary member too – a status for which I am very grateful to the Association.
Madam President, unfortunately I do not have my membership card with me. However, I trusted that, even without showing it, you would let me in, hence I did not fetch it from my private abode, the one I had set up here in Rome over two years ago.
Sharing this moment with you is truly a pleasure, recalling how this Association’s history began over a century ago: a small group of press correspondents – fourteen – in a very particular moment in the history of Europe.
As you pointed out, that moment Europe was experiencing was the belle époque, which would soon be wiped out, only two years later, by the devastating first World War.
Until two years ago, what Europe was going through was not exactly a belle époque, but an époque de paix, which we are trying and hoping to defend, preserve and fully restore, eliminating, removing and extinguishing the fires and winds of war that have been arising in Europe and just outside Europe in recent times.
The history of your Association is indeed important. Those fourteen correspondents have obviously greatly grown in number. Just as information tools – which are constantly changing in this era – have been increasingly multiplying.
But, as you mentioned earlier, Madam President, all of this has not changed the spirit of the presence of foreign correspondents in Rome and in Italy. Because this presence has always accompanied, with an unaffected spirit of knowledge and narration, the life of Italy, its events and the evolution of its society, in order to describe it – rightly so – and interpret it for the benefit of readers in their respective countries.
I think I can say that all this has taken place as you conducted your work committing to two pillars: that of independence of judgment (something that foreign correspondents in our country have always manifested), and that of knowing Italy ever more in depth, in order to better comprehend and interpret it.
Indeed, this is the aim of the Association’s activities that you just mentioned, Madam President – which I wouldn’t define accessory, but complementary. Activities whose goal is to get to know Italian culture and Italian cinema better, as well as other, different but significant aspects, such as cuisine, Italian lifestyle and sports.
Getting to know things for interpreting and genuinely recounting what goes on in Italy, pairing it with a spirit of independence, highlights once again the crucial role of a free press, which is the vital guardian of the people’s freedom.
And this clearly calls for my appreciation and that of the Italian Republic, with a thought that stems from the situation we operate in.
You just said it yourself, Madam President, that this conference hall, which stretches out before this suggestive fan, can be – and always will be – Italy’s window giving onto the world. And it will also be the world’s window giving onto Italy.
That is why the Republic is extremely grateful to foreign correspondents and wishes you the best for your activities.
There is increasing awareness – owing to journalism too – of the fact that the world is increasingly integrated, increasingly gathered up, increasingly interconnected. Therefore there is the need for relations that are collaborative, not confrontational. In this regard too, the role of the press is fundamental.
Best wishes and thank you for your work.
