Good morning everyone.

My thanks go to Prime Minister Plenković, I am very happy to be here. 
I am very happy to be making an official visit to Croatia as Italian Prime Minister, more than twenty years since the last of its kind, which is frankly inexplicable also considering how close we are geographically as well as the historical proximity that we share, and considering the strength of our relationship, which, nevertheless, has continued to always be very significant. However, Prime Minister Plenković and I agree on the fact that, also in this regard, we can always do better.

We must clearly acknowledge the excellent state of our relations at bilateral level, and also at multilateral level. As the Prime Minister mentioned, at bilateral level, Italy is Croatia’s largest trading partner: in 2022, trade between us exceeded EUR 8 billion. We are one of the biggest investors in this country, also in strategic sectors such as the banking and finance sector. However, this is also true from a multilateral point of view, starting with European Union matters.    

Yesterday evening’s dinner was an important part of the series of dinners with small groups of European Heads of State and Government in view of the Strategic Agenda, in view of enlargement: it is good to discuss these major issues with each other, to take the time necessary to do so and to discuss them with the necessary frankness.
Europe must clearly rethink itself in order to be able to address the major challenges posed by international crises, but also the opportunities linked, for example, to the reunification of the European Union (because I don’t like to call it ‘enlargement’, I like to call it ‘reunification’).

From issues regarding the European Union to those regarding NATO, from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine to the crisis in Gaza – global challenges in relation to which our nations can find further areas of bilateral cooperation, also considering the role we have with the Adriatic Sea, with the Mediterranean, and also in the trilateral relationship with Slovenia.
I met with Prime Minister Golob in Rome just a few days ago. We agreed that Italy and Croatia can and must work together in an increasingly intense, synergistic way, also because, during this Government’s first year in office, we have often found ourselves in agreement with the Prime Minister regarding our viewpoints on many issues.

Clearly, culture, tourism, science, energy, defence, which I believe is one of the sectors in which we can certainly strengthen our cooperation: our nations’ closeness is very valuable and must be enhanced more and more, and better and better.

As the Prime Minister was saying, we have already planned an interministerial committee and business forum to be held here in Zagreb at the start of next year. We agree on the fact that this event needs to be given a strong mandate, a mandate that must give our relations an increasingly strategic direction. It is not simply about strengthening our economic cooperation and strengthening our industrial cooperation, it is about strengthening our role in an area that is key at this time: our common region.

This also means that one of the major topics we have discussed in relation to strengthening our cooperation regards the very issue of the sea. As you know, this Italian Government is the first to have established a ministry for the sea: this means the blue economy, it means strategy, it means interconnection networks, it means foreign policy; it means many things that Italy and Croatia can do together.

The matter of trans-European corridors also fits perfectly in this, as indeed does the migration issue, which we also discussed. We have spoken with the Prime Minister about this many times, also during our European Council meetings, and we agree on the fact that we are facing an unprecedented migration crisis, as well as on the fact that the best way to tackle this crisis is to work on the external dimension.
I have always found Croatia to be very supportive of our attempt to somewhat redesign Europe’s policy on migration: whereas before discussions were above all about how to solve the problem once it was already on our territory (so, the issue of redistribution and everything we have heard discussed for many years), today we are together all asking ourselves how to solve the problem at an earlier stage, above all through different cooperation with African countries, so working more on the external dimension, also to avoid the problems that we have seen and continue to see.

We are of course perfectly aware of the difficulties caused, especially for cross-border communities, by border controls being reintroduced in order to cope with current challenges clearly in terms of security, above all linked to the Middle East crisis, as the Prime Minister mentioned; this is the reason why we have made this choice, which we obviously consider temporary and that we are ready to reconsider at any time once security conditions are clearer and calmer. However, at the same time, we are also working: we talked about how we can work to strengthen cooperation in terms of controlling our borders, which has already been excellent both with Croatia and also with Slovenia I must say. All the biggest and best tools that we can implement are therefore certainly also an element that will allow us to move beyond the temporary decisions Italy has made.

We spoke about the Western Balkans. We are both nations that are very determined to move forward with the reunification process and we believe that, from this point of view, the European Union must quickly give concrete signals; there will be an important European Council meeting in December, during which we believe these signals can and must be given. I am thinking, for example, of the opening of the accession procedure for Bosnia and Herzegovina. In short, we are nations that are working together on this challenge, which is an extremely important, key challenge.

As the Prime Minister was saying, we also spoke about the role of our minorities: the Croatian minority in Italy and the Italian minority in Croatia. These communities also strengthen our cultural ties. As you know, there are minority protection agreements dating back as far as 1996; we discussed the possibility of envisaging joint technical working groups to see what is the implementation status of these agreements, and to assess whether there is also scope to strengthen and improve them, because the role of our minorities is an important one. I wish to thank the Croatian Government for the level of awareness they have always shown in this regard, and my thanks also go to the representatives of the Italian community who, as you know, are also present in Parliament here, with a longevity which I must say is extraordinary and that clearly makes us proud.

My visit here today is the first stage in the renewed desire to strengthen cooperation within our relationship, the next will be the joint committee and business forum to be held early next year. I think there really is still a lot that can be done to strengthen our bilateral and multilateral cooperation. 
Thank you for your hospitality, Prime Minister, and thanks to all of you.

[Courtesy translation]