President Meloni’s address to the ‘Italian students in Europe’ event organised by the Ministry of Education and Merit

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for waiting for me.

I wasn’t scheduled to be here but I wanted to come and greet you all, even at the last minute, because, as Minister Valditara knows, I really care about the initiative that has been presented today.

I would first of all like to thank all the students and particularly the student representatives and student council representatives – roles I have held many times, unfortunately quite some time ago now. I know how exciting yet complex they can be. As I’ve said on various occasions, few things have taught me more about politics than student assemblies. They are some of the most complex things you can do in your life. So, it’s good that you’re doing it, as it will teach you a lot, whatever choices you go on to make in your life.

As I was saying, I care a lot about this initiative and I therefore wanted to come and greet you personally because, as I imagine Minister Valditara – whom I thank – has amply explained, we are talking about the biggest language training and international mobility programme ever to have been implemented in Italy for high-school students. An investment worth EUR 420 million of European Structural Funds which we have decided to allocate to this challenge. We want to make these resources available so that at least 150,000 young Italians can have what we consider to be a particularly important experience, especially in this day and age: namely, to spend time, a period of study and training, in another European country and improve their foreign language skills, engaging with realities that are different from their own.

Minister Valditara has already outlined all the details of the project and I shan’t go back over them, as I don’t want to go on for too long. What I do want to tell you, the message I want to give you is this: do not consider this simply as an opportunity to learn a foreign language more effectively; I believe it is more than that – that is very important, but it’s more than that.

Living and studying in another country, even if only for a few weeks or months, means learning to deal with new situations, becoming more independent, and engaging with people who have different customs, ideas and cultures from your own. It therefore means expanding your minds and your ability to understand others. It means building self-confidence, learning to cope and broadening your horizons. Furthermore, for us it means enriching our community, because when the young people participating in this project come back, they will bring back much more than just better knowledge of and fluency in a foreign language. They will bring back new ideas, new friendships, greater self-confidence and a broader view of the world, all of which certainly represents an asset for them but it will also be valuable for their friends, their families, their classmates and the whole of Italy.

Today, we live in an increasingly interconnected world. Universities, employers, research institutions, and companies are looking more and more for people who are able to navigate international contexts, and speaking another language, particularly having a good knowledge of English, is very important. However, it is even more important to be able to use that language in real life, and you can’t do that by simply learning a language from textbooks; you can only do that by managing to experience that language, immersed in the context in which it is spoken.

This is why we decided to invest in this initiative, above all because we believe our talented young people deserve the same opportunities as all their peers in Europe, for example. We believe that, in this day and age, young people’s talent cannot and must not be limited by a language barrier. And look, few people know that as well as I do.

In this regard, I’d like to share my personal experience with you. I’ve always loved foreign languages. I studied languages at high school and wanted to be an interpreter when I grew up. A great deal of my knowledge of languages actually stems from what I was passionate about: I studied English because I was a fan of Michael Jackson and wanted to understand his lyrics; I progressed further in French because I was a fan of decadent poets; I spoke Spanish because, when I was little, my father lived on the Canary Islands, so I had to get by, and had I not learned Spanish, I wouldn’t have been able to share anything with anyone in those few weeks. I am passionate about languages and this passion of mine has taught me something of fundamental importance: you can only truly learn a language when you experience it and try to understand what’s really behind the words that are used.

I love idiomatic expressions. Idiomatic expressions in another language teach you much more than you can of course learn with phrases like “The cat is on the table” – namely, they teach you about the culture, history and mentality behind the words. I am therefore certain that, if you want to truly learn a language, you have to speak it with the people who speak it, you have to go there and have an experience where you can immerse yourself in that reality. This will really help you to understand what’s behind it all.

As I was saying, no one knows better than me how important this is in this day and age. As you know, my job involves speaking a lot with foreign colleagues. Don’t get me wrong, there are people who do this for a living – it’s what I wanted to do, like I told you at the start; there are interpreters, so you can easily go and talk with your counterparts without speaking the same language. However, I must also tell you that, in my view, there is no interpreter – no matter how good they are – who can manage to convey what you can convey directly yourself, in other words your understanding of the other person and the possibility for the other person to understand you. This kind of relationship is far more human, far more real and far more immediate.

This totally makes the difference. It will make the difference for you too, especially in such interconnected × like it or not, you’ll find yourselves facing this issue of interconnectedness and the need to learn another language, no matter what path you choose in life.

This is why we wanted to invest so much in this kind of project – to remind ourselves and focus on the fact that, if we don’t get rid of this barrier today, we risk very many young Italians not being fully free in the future to choose, because of the language barrier. We want to do everything we can to overcome the language barrier. This can of course be achieved through curricula, through educational programmes and obviously at school, but this can also be achieved, as I have tried to explain from my point of view, through other solutions. Among these other solutions, this kind of experience totally makes the difference.

You need to be completely free to make your choices when the time comes. You must not have any pre-established limits that are beyond your control, created by the circumstances you come from or the family you were born into. Those barriers must be torn down. True equality exists at the starting point, not at the finish line. A fair State puts the conditions in place for everyone to have the same opportunities, but the State cannot then determine where you end up; you are the ones to determine where you end up, through your capabilities, determination and passion.

What we are trying to do is to create starting conditions that are equal for everyone, including within a dimension that is today becoming very important indeed: your ability to engage with your peers, wherever they may be.

Good luck, have a great summer and I hope you appreciate this initiative, which is very close to my heart and which we will try to expand even further.

My sincere thanks once again for having waited for me.

[Courtesy translation]

Lingua
Inglese

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President Meloni addresses event to launch the ‘Italian students in Europe’ initiative by the Ministry of Education and Merit

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