President Meloni’s message to 17th Conference of Italian Ambassadors

Dear friends,
I wish to greet Minister Tajani, Secretary General Guariglia and all you Heads of Mission, who have the duty and the honour of leading Italy’s diplomatic network abroad. Your work is unlike any other. Yours is a mission, as you bear a responsibility that is twofold: to represent your homeland on the mission assigned to you, and to be the voice of an entire community, a history, an identity, a people.

The great patriot Giuseppe Mazzini used to say that the homeland is the family of the heart. Family is the most precious thing we have, and it must be defended and protected at all costs. We may not like it at times and we would often like it to be better, every so often it may even make us angry, but there is no other place in the world where we truly feel at home. That place is Italy, our family.

As happens in every family, when a problem arises, you have to figure out how to solve it.
You have to make choices and decide what path to take. Is there a risk of getting it wrong? Absolutely. No one has all the answers, and we make mistakes every day. This, however, is what our mission requires of us: to dare, to have courage, to give it all we’ve got to overcome the obstacles.

While it is true that the Government is responsible for providing political guidelines, it is equally true that you are tasked with giving concrete substance to those guidelines with boldness, determination and passion, and, where possible, also by finding innovative and original solutions. This is what our compatriots, both in Italy and abroad, expect from us and it is our duty to meet that expectation in our daily work.

It is all the more important that we do so at this historic moment in time, which is probably one of the most complex since the post-war period. Italy and Europe are called upon to address increasingly complicated challenges, in a global context marked by conflict and growing instability and characterised by geopolitical and geo-economic fragmentation that is opening up unprecedented scenarios.

On 19 November, we commemorated a thousand days of heroic Ukrainian resistance against Russia’s war of aggression. Our resolute support for Ukraine’s legitimate defence will continue. In July next year, Italy will host a conference on reconstruction, an important event for which I am counting on your support.

The Middle East also deserves a fresh prospect for overcoming this permanent crisis. The ceasefire in Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria provide opportunities that we must work on, together with our partners, in order to achieve a just and sustainable peace throughout the region.
Italy will remain at the forefront in asking for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of Israeli hostages as well as in laying the foundations for a lasting political solution, only possible through a two-state solution that guarantees security and mutual recognition to Israelis and Palestinians.

As a sign of how strategic and necessary these reflections are, we will also be talking about all these matters at the next European Council meeting, in a discussion dedicated to the role Europe wants and needs to have at global level, in order to promote our ideals and defend our citizens’ interests.
This is a new scenario, in which the homogenous blocks of the past no longer exist and where the interdependency of the destinies of the Global North and Global South must be considered the basis for a new approach in international relations.

The Mattei Plan for Africa is a key part of this new approach. We are well aware that Italy is certainly not the first to arrive on the African continent, but it does present an exception compared with how relations with African nations have been viewed in recent years. Indeed our challenge is not to replicate paternalistic models and impose measures and projects from above, and nor is it to plunder Africa of its resources; it is rather to allow them to use those resources in order to live off what they have, with stable governments and prosperous societies.
Our goal is to build cooperation on an equal footing that is beneficial for all, based on mutual respect, concreteness and sharing. Our African partners are asking us to do things together, jointly setting goals and roadmaps.

Our partners have shown that they appreciate this approach, and it is our job to promote it. 2025 will be a decisive year, and the Government is entrusting the Italian diplomatic network with the task of supporting the acceleration of the Plan’s roll-out with a view to ‘Europeanising’ and ‘internationalising’ the Mattei Plan more and more, by strengthening the synergies that already exist with the EU’s Global Gateway and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. It is precisely because we believe in this approach that Italy designed all the events as part of its G7 Presidency this year with a very open format, seeing the historic participation of the Holy Father at the G7 Leaders’ Summit and building one of the most representative Outreach sessions ever held, which involved all continents, the G20, the African Union, economic and financial institutions and multilateral development banks.
Some instrumentally portray the West as a closed fortress that is self-referential and indifferent to the demands coming from the Global South. I am proud that Italy has contributed to proving this narrative wrong and to showing that the G7 embodies values open to the world and wants to build shared development and growth.

I believe this is one of the most significant legacies of the Italian G7 Presidency, and I wish to once again thank the Ministers, diplomats and officials who have worked tirelessly to achieve this goal and the others we had set ourselves.
It is our duty to continue along this path. Hence why we intend to dedicate a priority focus of Italy’s foreign policy in 2025 to developing renewed ties with the Global South. Over the last two years, we have strengthened our traditional alliances, but we have also opened channels of dialogue with partners with whom we did not speak much in the past or with whom our relations were less intense. This is a great added value, enabling Italy to diversify its geopolitical and geo-economic reach.

Alongside our new relationship with the African continent and with India, in 2025 we must also renew our relations with Latin America, with whom Italy and Europe are bound by extremely deep historical and cultural ties that are nurtured daily by a very strong presence of our compatriots and Italian descendants. Also to this end, work has already begun to finalise new Action Plans with Argentina and Brazil over the coming months in order to strengthen our strategic partnership.

In a few days’ time, I will be attending the EU-Western Balkans summit. Thanks to the work done together, the accession of Western Balkan nations to the European Union is once again a priority issue on the agenda in Brussels. We must keep working towards this goal because, as I have reiterated several times, their entry into the Union would finally mark the completion of Europe’s reunification.

So, dear friends, we have a very demanding year ahead of us. Everything around us appears to be changing, and the few certainties we thought we had are no longer there. Italy must show that it is up to the task history has bestowed upon us, proving this to the citizens we govern, our compatriots living all over the world and our children and grandchildren who will inherit the nation.

Every action we take, every action you take, can make a difference. Addressing problems rather than postponing them, moving forward instead of back, favouring what is right over what is expedient: this is our difficult but necessary task. We will do our part, and I am certain you will do the same.

Thank you.