Meloni: 'Structural and long-term responses are needed regarding energy'

"If we don't build structural and long-term responses, we risk remaining at the mercy of the emergency." Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said this about the high cost of energy while speaking at the Assolombarda assembly in Milan.

"Italian growth is weak, but the economy has withstood the shock wave. I want to thank you on behalf of the nation for your contribution - he added, addressing the entrepreneurs -. If Italy is strong, authoritative and admired in the world, the credit goes above all to the companies and their workers, it belongs to those who try not to settle because in an ever-increasing world there risks being no room for those who retreat and for those who hesitate".

"The data for the first six months of this year tell us that growth for 2026 can reach 1 percent, in line with the main European economies, and this time too, beyond forecasts", underlined the Prime Minister, maintaining that "we Italians are often underestimated. It's just that when the European Union underestimates us we are used to it, but when we are systematically underestimated by our bodies it's a bit disappointing, but that's how it is".

"An industry that wants to create certainly needs willpower, but it also needs a State that accompanies it, that considers it an ally and that does not consider it a mere subject to be taxed or even directly controlled or even hindered", stated Meloni reiterating that "the State is an ally" of the industry and "does not consider it a subject to be taxed".

"The government will be there when needed and will let you work, because sometimes the best help to those who produce is not to get in the way. Continue to do what you do best, to dare, to build, to believe in this extraordinary adventure called Italy", added the prime minister, addressing the entrepreneurs.

"Italy does not sit in Europe to always say yes. Italy is one of the countries that founded Europe and has the right and duty to say when things are not right", he continued. "Within the multiannual financial framework, we also want new priorities to be financed and certainly among these priorities there is competitiveness, but we cannot seek resources on competitiveness by cutting on cohesion or agricultural policy, because cohesion and agricultural policy are a precondition of what we are trying to build in Europe - added Meloni -. You cannot build competitiveness if the territories do not all grow and run at the same speed and you cannot defend strategic autonomy if you are cutting on the only strategic autonomy that we have in Europe, which is the one on what we eat".

"So things must move forward together and Italy, as you know, has been and is in the forefront on this too, we have created a document, we have promoted a document, Friends of Cohesion, it is called, which has been signed by 22 out of 27 member countries. There are many other battles that with our weight and our common sense we can carry forward".

"It is easy to see opportunities in the United States or in the Gulf, more difficult to see them in Africa. But we are talking about the youngest continent on the planet and among the markets that will grow the most in the coming decades. Being there means not leaving others an opportunity that can above all be ours."