Rome, 12 December. (Adnkronos) – “Europe and Italy remain firmly at the side of Ukraine and its people, with the aim of a fair, just, lasting peace, respectful of international law, independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and Ukrainian security”. While we continue to discuss the various hypotheses to stop the war in Ukraine, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, reiterates what the essential points must be in order to put an end to the conflict. The occasion is the traditional meeting at the Quirinale with the diplomatic corps accredited in Italy to exchange end-of-year greetings. 132 ambassadors were present, those of the Russian Federation and Belarus were missing, as has happened in every official ceremony since Moscow attacked Kiev.
And the Head of State does not give up on holding the Kremlin to its responsibilities, rejecting any hypothesis that could sound like a victory for the aggressors over the attacked. “It is the prevalence of law, respect for the rules that the international community has given itself, that avoid conflict, that favor the overcoming of inequalities. But this perspective was abruptly dissolved just under four years ago. A protagonist of the international community, the Russian Federation, has, unfortunately, chosen to overturn this path by restoring, by force, the ahistorical search for zones of influence, of territorial conquest, of cruel arrogance of weapons. The principle cannot be waging war to make peace: it is paradoxical that the peace evoked by those who, by waging war, actually claim to impose their own conditions appears senseless”.
“In an era in which the international order we knew is wavering”, Mattarella reiterates that the UN represents “the most ambitious attempt in the history of humanity to give a framework of rules to international relations”. Of course, “a system conceived in 1945 clearly requires to be adapted to the need to reflect the current conditions of the international community, to be characterized by greater representativeness and democracy, giving effective space to areas of the world which, today, do not see it recognized”.
Woe, however, “if leading protagonists of the ‘old’ international order propose, with their behaviour, to give life to a ‘new order’, based on oppression by any means, violence, war, conquest, competition between states for the hoarding of resources, thus attempting to perpetuate inequalities between peoples. Therefore, Mattarella highlights, “the hypothesis that these could be the values around which to build a ‘new order’ must be rejected. With the corollary of the return of the ‘soldiers of fortune’, of mercenaries called to wage war, on behalf of third parties, in distant countries, without motivations other than those of arrogance towards civilians and towards countries less structured to oppose them, less capable of defending themselves”.
And recalling that in the face of the “important glimmers” that have opened up in the Middle East, “much still remains to be done to consolidate the ceasefire” and that the Ukrainian and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts cannot make us forget the others “that exist”, the President of the Republic highlights that “to give hope to the future of humanity, a renewed collective effort is needed, which manages to guarantee that the dignity of men and States is safeguarded, in a framework of peaceful coexistence and respect for the law international. A world with a few predestined people sitting at a banquet and many others destined to hope to get some crumbs is not acceptable.”
And in this international scenario, the Head of State defends and claims the role of the European Union, “one of the most successful experiences of peace between peoples and of democracy”, which was “born and has expanded in the constant search for peace – I repeat – and freedom, guaranteed, within its own sphere, on the basis of Treaties freely stipulated by the European peoples, who have derived rights and well-being from them. The free sharing of principles and norms is not a cage that forces, but a support that protects, especially the weakest. It is not surprising that they are contested by international corporations that expand by claiming not to have to observe any rules: this would not be freedom but arbitrariness”. Whoever has ears to hear, it is appropriate to say, let him hear. (by Sergio Amici)
