Camera dei Deputati
Courtesy Translation
Dear Colleague,
the coronavirus pandemic and the huge number of deaths it has caused have
placed our continent before the greatest challenge it has ever faced. This time our task
is not so much to overcome the divisions between States or the dichotomy between
one’s own interests versus the goal of coexistence,
or else the aggression of a player
towards all the others. What is at stake today is the very survival of our national systems
and even more so of our continental system first and foremost at a societal level, rather
than in economic or political terms.
As members of national Parliaments, we have something that unites us: we
represent all citizens irrespective of our political affiliations. Each of us represents
everyone without distinction, comprehensively and, I trust, with full awareness: if we
do not learn from so much sorrow, we will have wasted it, and that will be our greatest
guilt tainting our lives, both as individuals and collectively.
The spread of the virus must have taught us that the next challenges facing
humanity will not be national in character and cannot be overcome individually: if we
are to fulfil the mandate that our citizens have given us, we must overcome the
parochial and selfish attitudes that sometimes still condition the activity of
governments and must join forces in the name and on behalf of those who have
bestowed upon us this greatest of all responsibilities.
This global emergency offers us a great opportunity, perhaps the last in our lives,
to give real substance to Article 12 of the TEU and build, all together, the "effective
and regular inter-parliamentary cooperation within the Union" which is so often
invoked as indispensable without being adequately practised.
This is the time to get to know each other, to engage with one another and talk
together, work together, produce together rules and policies to be submitted to our
respective Parliaments, so that we can try and lead our Nations towards a future based
on joint constructive action and not on mere economic calculations, which cannot
inspire a progressive momentum strong enough to underpin a prosperous future for all.