Draghi's wake-up call to Europe from the Rimini Meeting

"The European Union has so far played a marginal role in the negotiations in Ukraine. It has also been a spectator while Iranian nuclear sites were being bombed and the massacre in Gaza intensified. China has also made it clear that it does not consider Europe an equal partner and is using its control of rare earths to make our dependence increasingly binding." For his speech at the Rimini Meeting , Mario Draghi chose a long list. Merciless and painful. It is the list of the many things for which Europe, incapable of undertaking "new forms of political integration," is being slapped in the face in a world in turmoil. "This year," Draghi said, receiving loud applause, " will be remembered as the year in which the European illusion of thinking that the economic dimension brings with it geopolitical and trade power evaporated . Trump has given us a brutal wake-up call. The thing to do now is: let's all pull together." The former Prime Minister was thus the first on a long list of personalities speaking at the Communion and Liberation event until August 27. On Thursday, it will be her turn to close the event, the woman who succeeded him at Palazzo Chigi, the leader of the only party not part of his government, Giorgia Meloni. And if she listened to her predecessor, she will likely owe him an answer. Draghi said: "Europe is our best opportunity for a future of peace, independence, and solidarity. The presence of the five European leaders and the President of the European Commission at the last meeting, which took place at the White House, was a demonstration of unity that, in the eyes of Europeans, means more than many meetings in Brussels ." This, in short, is the right path to continue pursuing. Will Meloni do so? Will she follow the path indicated by her predecessor, or will she prefer to listen to those among the leaders of one of the three parties that supports her majority, the League, who are already saying, more or less explicitly, that Trump's defeats on tariffs and Ukraine are the epitaph of the Union? Draghi also reminds Meloni that it's possible to change one's mind . Chatting with the Meeting's president, Bernhard Scholz, in the fair's large auditorium with over 5,000 seats, he says: " I wrote my thesis arguing that the single currency was a complete nonsense. When I returned to Italy, I saw that some things had changed and perhaps it was worth giving the euro a chance, but my Europeanism is very pragmatic, with its feet firmly on the ground; it doesn't start from grand principles."

It was the former prime minister's fourth appearance at the Meeting. The first was in 2009, when he was governor of the Bank of Italy. The last was in 2022, as prime minister. But the speech that remains in everyone's memory is the one from August 2020. Draghi had finished his term as governor of the ECB in Frankfurt less than a year earlier, and his speech—famous for his self-quoted distinction between good and bad debt—was widely interpreted as the prelude to a foray into the field that would, in fact, come true within a few months.

In Rimini, however, the first government official to speak, Business Minister Adolfo Urso , attempted to trace, at least in words, a line of ideal continuity between Draghi and Meloni: "There is a leader who has best succeeded in taking up Draghi's baton, and few of you believed it. The very fact that this Meeting will soon officially open with him and conclude with Giorgia Meloni marks Italy's success ." But will this continuity go beyond words? In the next few days, almost the entire government will pass through here: Giorgetti, Tajani, Salvini, Piantedosi, Lollobrigida, Foti, Pichetto Fratin. Up to Meloni, of course. The executive was certainly already very present at the Meeting yesterday. Of the 13 large pavilions at the Fair, three were completely occupied by government representatives: the Ministries of Infrastructure, Foreign Affairs, and the Environment. But other ministries—Education, Labor—also had smaller stands inside . Compared to previous years, there were already a lot of people on the opening day. Lots of young people.

The secret is revealed by one of the 3,000 volunteers who make this incredibly large event possible: 140 conferences, 13 exhibitions, 17 shows, 550 speakers, 150 sponsors, 8,000 square meters of exhibition space, 5,000 seats for catering, an entire pavilion filled with sports fields, a children's village with a bookshop, and even a room dedicated to chess tournaments. "Compared to previous years," the volunteer explains, "this time we started on the weekend, leaving the more politically charged speeches for weekdays. This way, there were already a lot of people there today." Among them, at a certain point, Sergio Castellitto appears, wearing a blue shirt, light-colored trousers, and sunglasses. "What's Castellito doing at the Meeting?" a woman whispers to her husband. It was he who staged "The Choirs from La Rocca" yesterday at the Rimini theater, in one of the collateral events of the CL festival, the play "The Choirs from La Rocca," T.S. Eliot's work, from which this year's motto is taken: "In desert places we will build with new bricks." It's usually chosen a year in advance, but the hermeneutic key to interpreting it is dictated by current events. And so, in times of war, Eliot's phrase becomes a hymn to peace, a theme cited by Scholz in his opening address to the Meeting and also by the President of the Republic , Sergio Mattarella , in his message to the Meeting. And that the underlying theme should be the topic chosen by Pope Leo XIV for his inauguration as pope is also clear from the first item on the Meeting's program: a dialogue between a Palestinian mother and an Israeli mother who lost her son on October 7. Mario Draghi has shown the way for Europe to play a role in truly guaranteeing the peace hoped for by the Meeting. Will Meloni listen to him?

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