Mattarella in Warsaw: “The EU should overcome some prehistoric rules on immigration”

We publish below the complete speech that the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella held in Warsaw, guest of the Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.

I thank President Duda very much for the friendly welcome he gives me, together with the delegation that accompanies me. And this visit is very important for me to reaffirm together the friendship between Poland and Italy, the sympathy that has always bound our peoples and the great collaboration that exists.

As President Duda recalled, we have an important economic collaboration; the interchange of the past year has been growing, we hope it will grow further and that the collaboration between our companies will develop more and more. We have a collaboration of great importance also on a cultural level, as the President recalled, which is traditional. A cultural exchange that was born a long time ago and that sees in Italy a great interest in Polish culture.

This year will be celebrated in Italy the centenary of the birth of Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska, the poet who won the Nobel Prize. There are several initiatives in Italy to remember her. I am happy to go the day after tomorrow to the great Jagiellonian University and to go to Krakow – the President’s city – to reaffirm, there too, the great friendship that binds our countries.

Naturally it is a friendship that has been consecrated in Montecassino. Let us not forget the contribution to our freedom that young Poles offered in that important battle for the outcome of the Second World War in Italy. It was not only a pleasure for me, but an honor to be present four years ago with President Duda in Montecassino at the cemetery. And it will be next year too.

Naturally, at this moment, on all these aspects of great collaboration, important, – which we continue to take care of – the interest and attention to the security sector is paramount, for what is happening, with the brutal aggression of the Russian Federation against ‘Ukraine. With a need for support for Ukraine in which we registered complete harmony in the talks just now. Full harmony which means support for Ukraine as long as it is necessary, as long as it is needed, from every point of view: of military, financial, humanitarian supplies, for the reconstruction of the country, with the conviction that this concerns not only Ukraine, and not only the countries close to Ukraine like Poland, but it concerns all the countries that appeal to the freedom of individuals and peoples.

Because that is what is at stake and is endangered by Russian aggression. As President Duda rightly said, if Ukraine were left at the mercy of this aggression, more would follow. And the worldwide connection would plummet.

But Ukraine has the right to solidarity, and we guarantee it in full as long as it is necessary, in every respect. Also because we are all, as is well known to all of us, horrified by some inhuman behaviors which, in the war, are used by the Russian Armed Forces, hitting targets of civilian infrastructure, hitting places of civilian homes, in such a way as to make even the more cruel the aggression in progress. Naturally, all of this required – and this is a very important fact – a great cohesion of many countries around Ukraine.

The European countries are carrying out a great work of support in every respect in the Atlantic Alliance. And we are delighted that this year has seen Finland join NATO. And we hope that Sweden’s effective entry will soon come.

The unity of the Alliance is an important fact, just as it was in parallel with the unity of the European Union which expresses, in every way, its support for Ukraine, by actively and concretely committing itself.

In this there have been adhesions to the sanctions against Russia which are essential to make people understand the seriousness of the behavior of what happened; just as it is important that the European Union has shown that it sees its founding values ​​at stake in this affair, in this brutal and unacceptable attack on the freedom, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Like the Atlantic Alliance, the European Union was born to defend the freedom of individuals and peoples, to defend democracy, to defend the rule of law. All of this is at stake right now. And for this reason the European Union is at stake on the Ukrainian front, as is the Atlantic Alliance. And this cohesion of the countries of the Alliance and of the European Union is particularly important to preserve at every step, even in the future.

We also spoke with the President – as he kindly recalled – about migration: a phenomenon that Poland knows well, not only for the great hospitality that is generously offered to millions of Ukrainian refugees – and this is an object of admiration from Italy – but also for what happened, on the border with Belarus, of clandestine introductions of immigrants.

All of this requires – as we well know in Italy, due to the large turnout, growing from African countries, and not only from African countries but also from Asian countries – that the problem be tackled by the European Union as a problem of the Union.

No state alone can address such an epochal problem. But the European Union can do it with coordinated and well organized action. And this is a theme that calls for the responsibility of the Union, and calls for a new immigration and asylum policy within the Union, overcoming old rules that are now from prehistory.

All of this also refers to the relationship that exists with the African continent, as President Duda kindly recalled. It is an important relationship, in which pressure and destabilizing initiatives are being exerted. What is happening in these hours in Sudan is alarming. Wagner’s action in many African countries calls NATO and the European Union on high alert.

This requires active action by the European Union, a protagonist, which is strongly committed on these fronts. All of this also refers – and I would like to conclude on this to underline the importance of what President Duda said – to the configuration of the European Union, to its enlargement.

Last year, the EU took the historic decision to grant candidate status for EU membership to Ukraine and Moldova. It was a historically important choice, also in the sense of history, which must be cultivated until its concrete realization.

Naturally this also applies to the countries of the Western Balkans. As President Duda said, we have registered full consensus and harmony on this too. Countries that have long been on a waiting list to join the Union are making major efforts to do so. And that accession process needs to be speeded up to create a real unity of freedom and common values ​​in Europe that contrasts this new anti-historical offensive that we are witnessing in this period.

For all this I thank President Duda, for the talks we had, for the harmony recorded and for the warm hospitality that he reserves us.

Thank you President, with much friendship.