(supersedes previous)Premier
Matteo Renzi said Friday Europe needs Italy to remind it what it
stands for.
"Europe needs Italy to...make itself heard not in terms of
making claims but of recalling what Europe is and must be," he
said in a speech at the Lincean Academy, a science academy
founded in 1603.
"Europe is not an ensemble of algorithms and parameters but
a response imagined by its founding fathers - a model that was
to guarantee peace...and act as a guiding light for
civilization," the premier said.
As far as Italy is concerned, his administration is looking
to the future and not just overhauling the country to fix the
mistakes of the past.
"The government is doing its part," the center-left premier
said.
"Some may like it and others may not, but we are determined
to carry on with our reforms...we're not here to put a patch on
things - we want to have a vision for the years to come".
GDP growth is secondary to the fact that the country has
just emerged from recession, Renzi added.
"Italy is coming out of a three-year recession," he said.
"The fact that growth may be 0.8% this year and one something
next year is secondary...finally this country has taken back its
own future".
Renzi also mentioned the fate of the Milan site of the
six-month Expo world's fair that ended in October.
"It is key that the post-Expo area not be simply a
condominium of public and private interests but a place with
soul that can study how to reconcile quality of life with longer
life expectancy, considering that we're second in the world for
longevity," the premier said.
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