The speech by Paolo Longobardi, honorary president of Unimpresa
The extraordinary results of the Italian athletes at the Olympics, still in progress, in Tokyo, have had a merit that goes beyond the exquisitely sporting successes. Moreover, these successes are rightly emphasized and celebrated by the media as well as by the institutions and by all the citizens of the country. Those medals had the positive effect of uniting Italy and, in this complex, painful and still difficult phase, both economically and socially, due to the pandemic, it was perceived and still perceived today, enormously, the need for stimuli and symbols. Not so much for a rediscovered and renewed patriotic sense, which should always be nourished, but for the need for a community,
There is also more. In those races and jumps, as well as in all the other gestures of our sports girls and boys dressed in blue, we seem to glimpse – and maybe yes: we like to see it – the redemption of a country, too long, sometimes with good reason, mistreated and for too long very little respected in international contexts. In sport and in other fields, from civil society to public institutions, we have almost gotten used to reading, often listening to less and less respectful considerations abroad, considerations that, going well beyond irony, which should not be blamed, they end up with only mockery and denigration: of a people, of a history, of an economy, of traditions.
The recent successes in sport – I am also referring to the victory of the national football team at the European Championships and the prestigious Wimbledon final played by the tennis player Matteo Berrettini – is just a metaphor, and perhaps also an example, of what we can achieve everywhere. This is a respect that, despite the difficulties linked to the pandemic, we are also gaining on the political ground. It hadn’t happened for some time and yet, thanks to the government led by Mario Draghi, which includes high-ranking professionals, our country has now regained a different weight.
The outcome of the negotiations with the European Union – an outcome that is anything but a foregone conclusion – has ensured our country, thanks to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, very significant and essential resources to allow the economy to engage with a sustained growth rate. . Those 209 billion euros obtained by Europe are an exceptional, perhaps unexpected result, another gold medal that gives pride to families, citizens and businesses. To the whole community.
And, never as today, it is necessary to bring out the Italian pride, the one that resounded from Tokyo throughout the world. A pride, if I think of our businesses, especially the smaller ones, perhaps even family-run ones, which have no reason to remain dormant. On the contrary: we must expect respect, in our borders as well as elsewhere. But that respect we have to earn day after day. We can be faster than everyone, go higher than everyone.
We can do this if the government manages the PNRR funds with foresight and with the appropriate foresight, above all to avoid waste and to stem the underworld that will try to grab a slice of the resources destined by the European Union for Italy. All this is true for the whole country and is particularly true for the South: the NRP offers the possibility of leaving the ghetto and giving back to the territories of the South what they deserve in economic, social and civil terms. Since the post-war years, the government of national unity led by Draghi – if it is not weakened by the instrumental quarrels of the political forces that make up the parliamentary majority – has assigned the southern regions the most significant financial endowment. So many public resources, in the South, had not been seen for some time. The South deserves a healthy development,
From this point of view, in my opinion, an imperceptible but fundamental ingredient will also be decisive: trust. We need to have a lot of it and believe in the potential of our business activities, focus on the goodness of projects every day. It is necessary to continue to invest, to look intelligently at the opportunities offered by new technologies, which must not represent a mere opportunity to reduce company costs, must not be shortcuts to easy earnings; innovation, technologies and digital must be opportunities to develop new products and services or to improve what we already do; they must be opportunities to be exploited to always look forward with a prospect of growth and progress.
Team play will be decisive, just like in sport: only in this way will the country be able to return to growth and change, with the contribution and commitment of all, as it has already demonstrated its ability to do in other seasons of its republican history. The embrace of our athletes, on the football fields, on the slopes or in the swimming pool or in other sports facilities, personifies the dream of an Italy that changes and wins for today and for tomorrow. It is with this assumption and with this positive spirit that we intend, upon recovery after the summer break, to direct our daily work at the service of micro, small and medium-sized Italian enterprises.
