The Ambassador of Italy in Berlin, Armando Varricchio, hosted a reception on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Council of the European Council on Foreign Relations, held this year in Berlin between 9 and 10 December.
The reception at the Embassy was attended by the Director of ECFR, Mark Leonard, as well as by government representatives, including the Portuguese Minister of Defence, João Gomes Cravinho, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for European Affairs of North Macedonia, Nikola Dimitrov, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Moldova, Nicu Popescu. The guests also included Ambassador Stefano Sannino, Secretary General of the EEAS, ECFR Deputy Director Alba Lamberti, and ECFR Rome Director, Arturo Varvelli.
In his welcoming speech, Ambassador Armando Varricchio stressed the solidity of Germany’s pro-European and transatlantic position: “this is very important for Italy, for our bilateral relations and the cooperation between our two countries in shaping the future of Europe, as well as for all other EU and NATO partners”.
Pointing out that the pandemic was a traumatic event in Europe and the world, the Ambassador continued: “We should learn from the past and look ambitiously to the future. In order to be ready for the challenges ahead, as we have seen in recent days, the European Union needs its own strategic autonomy, i.e. the ability to act in the global context and to be less dependent and vulnerable in areas of key strategic importance”. “This is why we need to be able to address important issues such as improving the functioning of the EU institutions or enlarging the European democratic space”, Varricchio added: “Values define who we are as Europeans and give credibility and unique power to our foreign policy” and, in this perspective, we need to seize the opportunity offered by the Conference on the Future of Europe.
