The organization of the 58th ATA General Assembly by the Italian Atlantic Committee is part of the Atlantic tradition of our country and has been a valuable occasion to contribute to the definition of NATO’s future strategies and to promote new perspectives in the field of cooperative security. The realization of such perspectives is essential to successfully tackle the emerging security challenges that, from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan, are affecting the Atlantic community.
The 58th General Assembly will thereby devote a particular attention to the issues related to the Mediterranean and the Middle East, with an innovative and concrete approach that, in the previous months, has involved hundreds of selected researchers, young professionals and University students whom I am pleased to welcome here today after that yesterday, in this very room, they have animated the Youth Atlantic Forum. It is indeed among the new generation that we must lay the ground for international relations based upon cooperation, even in the security field.
For a long time, the Italian Atlantic Committee has been focusing its efforts on offering the young representatives of the two shores of the Mediterranean the opportunity to meet and deepen a mutual and better understanding, as this is the first step towards the strengthening of a genuine cooperation. Opposing prejudice to prejudice does not serve the purpose of constructing a cooperative security, but fuels crisis and conflicts that seem never ending today and from which we cannot divert our attention.
Moreover, the emerging challenges to the security of the Atlantic community require a renewed cooperative approach in the development of a modern defense and related capabilities. In a context characterized by inevitable economic constraints due to the financial crisis, it will be necessary to promote a development of capabilities that, through prioritization, specialization and multinationalization, would constitute a driving force for the economic recovery.
These are some of the topics that will be analyzed and discussed during the Forums of the General Assembly, whose spirit is embedded in the national Atlantic tradition and in the contribution that the Italian Atlantic Committee has offered in the ATA framework since very the beginning.
In such respect, I would like to recall the figure of Amb. Paolo Pansa Cedronio, one of the most distinguished founders of the Italian Atlantic Committee recently passed away, for his commitment, also as ATA Vice President, in spreading an Atlantic awareness and the Atlantic values. The same values that the Italian Atlantic Committee has gathered, preserved and fostered for over fifty years and that today we pass on to this Assembly.
Address at the Opening Ceremony of the ATA 58thGeneral Assembly, 5th February 2013