Sergio Mattarella: Universities must be free even in their dissent from power. Mattarella said at the University of Trieste where he was awarded an Honorary Degree in Law.
He went on to urge the European Union to give "concrete answers" to the world's need for peace. The president also said that the project to forge closer ties between EU countries so as the build a stronger Union was "evermore urgent and unavoidable" He said "the European project is more imperative and urgent thanever, also in light of the Russian Federation's brutal and unjustifiable aggression against Ukraine."This applies not only to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, but above all to the countries of the Western Balkans that overtwenty years ago began this demanding path of integration", he said. The European Union is called to give concrete answers to the aspirations of those peoples who look to the most impressive cooperation project conceived on the rubble of the Second World War, Mattarella added. The Italian president was speaking at a university in Trieste.