Former Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Renzi, has expressed his support to a United States of Europe vision.
Speaking on the Future of Europe, during the Economist18th Annual Cyprus Summit, that opened on Tuesday in Nicosia, under the title “Navigating the crisis through mastery and inclusiveness” ,Renzi said that “in this time of crisis we have only one way forward: to try to encourage a vision focused on the United States of Europe.”
He stressed that “we have no alternative to that,” adding that “we need a role as Europeans able to guarantee a new future for our children.”
Referring to Turkey he said that there is a contradiction between the position of Turkey and the fact that it belongs to NATO, adding that Ankara’s position is unacceptable. Moreover he stressed that “Turkey has to decide if it will stay with our community or not.”
Renzi noted that navigating the crisis is a very hard job in this period, adding that there is a crisis of democracy around the world and a crisis of demography in Europe.
“We have tensions in every corner of the world. Probably the growth of extremism will be a problem for our communities more from what happens today in Afghanistan and in Africa, because there is a radical change,” he added.
He went on to say that “now the real problem of a leader is thinking at every moment about consensus in instragram, twitter, in social networks. A leader stops to be a leader and starts to be a follower. This is a problem because we lost the capacity to have a vision.”
He added that it is important for countries such as Cyprus to try to give a new vision for the next years.
The Italian politician noted that “the most important problem today is the problem in Ukraine with the illegal invasion and aggression of Russian troops. And that is a problem of territorial integrity for our Ukrainian friends but it is also a problem about the model of Europe we have in mind for the next years,” he added.
Referring to Energy, he said that he has a very great admiration for Cyprus’ policies in Energy.
He noted that when he was Prime Minister during discussions in the EU the vision of Germany, and particularly of Angela Merkel, concerned Nord Stream II, while “our strategy was to try to create a pipeline from the South, from the Middle East and from East Europe and that was a reason of great division and tensions in the European Council.”
Moreover, he referred to the food crisis, noting that food has to become one of the most important political problems around the world.
Renzi said that “we need a different vision and for that I think next year will be very good. In this time of difficulties there is the possibility to create a new vision and leave the time of crisis with a new vision and new hope. I believe that is possible.”
Asked if there is a risk of Turkey blocking the NATO membership of Sweden and Finland and if he worries about Turkey in the context of Europe security, he noted that there is a contradiction between the position of Turkey and the fact that it belongs to NATO.
“Turkey has to decide about its position. Because its position during the last years was absolutely unacceptable,” he added.
He noted that during the Daesh attack in 2014-15, when he was Prime Minister “I remember what happened when with President Obama we asked the women in Iraq to fight for the freedom of the world and we abandoned them with a very cynical and stupid strategy. And that was a decision pushed by the Turkish government.”
He went on to say that “we absolutely have to open the doors of NATO to Sweden and Finland. I think we have to encourage that position independent of Erdogan’s position.”
Renzi said that “Turkey has to decide if it will stay with our community or not. In the last period it was a zigzag and zigzag is not useful for everyone.”
Asked about the new government in Italy, Renzi expressed the view that the new government will have a 1.5 year horizon and that the next elections will be played in the centre of the political spectrum. He expressed the belief that “we will see a transformation of Italian leaders from anti-European to pro-European. That is tradition not only in Italy. Think what happened in Greece some years ago, consider what happened in every country,” he added.
He said that Giorgia Meloni “is not a fascist, she is not our problem, and she is not our solution.”
“I will continue to attack the government in my country, of course it will be impossible for us to support Meloni’s coalition. But that is democracy so don’t worry when the people vote,” he added.
“I consider these elections in Italy not a good page for my country, but not a tragedy. Giorgia Meloni will be probably unfit to lead Italy but now she won and this is democracy. We have to respect democracy and we have to prepare the alternative,” Renzi said.
Source: Cyprus News Agency