"Africa should not be exploited and should not be helped with pietism, but with equal dignity compared to Europe and this was the intuition that Enrico Mattei had had and that Giorgia Meloni intended to continue".
This was said by the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Francesco Lollobrigida, this morning in Matelica (Macerata) to visit the exhibition dedicated to Mattei, the entrepreneur who founded Eni, which was set up next to the renovated Antonio factory Merloni.
"Africa - added the minister - is not just any continent for us, it is a continent that is in indissoluble contact with Europe and for this reason Europe and Africa must develop common activities and grow together, compensating for the critical issues of 'one and the other'.
"If Africa today lacks technologies and training - Lollobrigida said - Europe must make them available and on the other hand Europe today needs safer food chains than those it has had up to now and the possibility for our companies of collaboration with African nations to be able to promote investment and therefore grow European and therefore also African wealth and it is on this that the Mattei Plan is based".
"A Plan - you explained - that Italy does not want to implement alone, but with other Western nations starting with the European Union".
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA