Italy, 2000

I wish to congratulate the

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Namibia, Theo-Ben

Gurirab, on his wise leadership of the fifty-fourth

General Assembly and his able preparation of the

Millennium Summit. I would also like to offer the

incoming President, Harri Holkeri, my best wishes

upon your assumption of this high office. Your

commitment and experience will be invaluable in

ensuring the success of the fifty-fifth session of the

General Assembly.

Italy fully supports the statement made on behalf

of the European Union by the current President, French

Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine, and will make a

decided contribution to the objectives he has indicated.

Allow me to add that it is also in order to step up our

commitment to achieving common goals that Italy is

presenting its candidature for the Security Council for

the next biennium.

The year 2001 will be the United Nations Year of

Dialogue among Civilizations. By unanimously

adopting the relevant resolution in its fifty-third

session, the General Assembly demonstrated its great

sensitivity and attention to the profound structural

changes under way in our national societies. It thereby

sent a strong signal on a number of themes that the

Secretary-General has put forth in his report on the role

of the Organization in the twenty-first century. These

themes cannot fail to include the new face of

international migration, whose gravest aspects include

illegal immigration and the trampling of human

dignity.

Dialogue among civilizations should not be

addressed in the abstract, academically. It demands real

contact and a bond between individuals and peoples.

To ensure that these contacts and this bond do not

mutate into tensions and strife, the community of

States must try to understand and manage migratory

phenomena. We must work together to prevent

migration flows from plunging into chaos, a chaos for

which the human person ultimately has to pay the

highest price.

Migration needs to be governed by fixed,

transparent rules. The source, the rationale of these

rules is the United Nations, to which the San Francisco

Charter in Article I, paragraph 3, entrusts the

fundamental role:

“To achieve international cooperation in solving

international problems of an economic, social,

cultural, or humanitarian character.”

I submit to you that today migration between or

within continents has become an international problem

with an economic, social, cultural and humanitarian

character.

Any solution to the problems connected with

migration must come to terms with the globalization

process. Globalization has reduced distance and time.

To an unprecedented degree it has linked countries at

opposite ends of the earth. There are even those who

speak, perhaps not wrongly, of “the end of geography”.

The paradox facing us stems from the real

difficulties of globalization extending not only to the

economy, finance and information but also to the

movements of peoples. Most of these difficulties can

be ascribed to the complex transition of many advanced

countries to multi-ethnic and multicultural societies.

Human beings are not commodities. When

individuals move, they preserve their roots, their

specificity and their experience, even when they come

into permanent contact with societies different from

their own. Hence the need for mutual tolerance, to

safeguard our respective customs and traditions.

9

The growing dimensions of migration have

widened the gap between individual government's

management capabilities and the individual person's

ability to move, which is heavily influenced by

progress in communications. All too often this gap is

filled by organized crime, by ruthless criminals who, in

some cases, traffic in human beings, in what amounts

to a modern form of slavery.

We need to ask how we can safeguard freedom

while impeding slavery; how we can prevent global

economic development from sparking social tensions;

how we can ensure that the growing contact between

different civilizations will produce dialogue rather than

intolerance. It will take a strong, determined

commitment from all of us to draft rules that, if

applied, can have a positive impact on international

migration flows, to the benefit of both home and host

countries.

Improving millions of human lives is the

fundamental challenge of development: we need a

clear, explicit and effective commitment to eradicate

poverty. We must realize that in a globalized world,

migration can gradually impoverish areas that are

already economically and socially disadvantaged.

Development assistance initiatives from

industrialized countries and non-governmental

organizations alike cannot defeat misery and poverty,

unless they are accompanied by an awareness that

foreign debt is a huge burden for Governments,

families and individuals. Generous remission of the

poorest countries' debt is not just an option: I feel it is

a must. This is why the Italian Parliament recently

approved a law to reduce foreign debt owed to Italy by

a total of $6 billion over the next three years.

Italy will also play a pro-active role in urging the

leading actors in the field of development assistance to

show determination in preparing the conference on

less-developed countries scheduled to take place in

Brussels next May. Moreover, my country confirms its

support for the needs and aspirations of the small-

island States and the landlocked countries, as it has

emphasized in the Economic and Social Council and

other forums.

But debt reduction is not enough. It should be

coupled with sound government policies in the

beneficiary countries, as part of an integrated strategy

underlying a new international social contract. In other

words, we must promote a package that combines

responsible political, economic and social reforms with

an opening-up of international markets. The 2001 high-

level intergovernmental meeting on financing for

development will provide us with a close opportunity

to finalize a strategy.

The fears that immigration sometimes generates

should not lead industrialized countries to build new

walls and fences. Such fears reject contact with

diversity and make some feel as if they were strangers

in their own country. A Europe built on fear, for

example, would ultimately cast immigrants as the

imaginary enemy, as a race apart. Any effort to

overcome such negative stereotyping should be

applauded, such as the Conference against Racism,

scheduled for 2001 in Pretoria.

The European Union has a great capacity to take

in people, and already has large immigrant

communities. But only now is it developing a common

approach to immigration. The European Union's

strategy relies on cooperation with other countries,

since the issue cannot be addressed solely through

border patrols and tougher repression of illegal

immigration, regardless of the cost.

For many years Europe did not have to worry

about the long-term consequences of immigration. But

today, with a declining birth rate and an ageing

population, Europe needs a strategy that embraces the

complex process of integrating people from different

regions of the world.

Then, there is the tragic, heinous trafficking in

human beings. As the United States Secretary of State

Madeleine Albright stated in this Assembly, we must

put a stop to this trafficking, a stop to boats being cast

into the sea, filled with sadness and desperation, driven

by hopes in a promised land. The pictures of these

illegal crossings have become unbearable. They

epitomize a state of affairs governed by the black

market, where there is an over-abundance of illegal

labour. This new form of piracy would be impossible if

those involved knew that they could not count on

collusion, safe havens and, all too often, impunity.

For example, the Mediterranean Sea, around

which great civilizations have prospered, is being

crossed by people who pay ruthless exploiters and

sometimes become their victims. In many cases, illegal

immigrants find it hard to gain access to the rule-of-

law society, and end up being treated as commodities.

10

As we know, immigration has various causes:

poverty, ethnic and religious strife, the repression of

totalitarian regimes, and the demands of more affluent

economies. Today, as never before, immigration is

driven by broadcast images that often distort honest

hopes for a better life. Moreover, it has reached

unprecedented proportions. In fact, since the early

eighties the number of countries that receive

immigrants has risen from 39 to 67, while the number

of countries of emigration has risen from 29 to 55. We

would be fooling ourselves to think that a phenomenon

of such proportions could be brought under control

solely through bilateral agreements.

The European Union has made cooperation

between national Governments a priority since the

European Council meeting of October 1999. But recent

experience points to the need for an approach in which

only the United Nations can confer the indispensable

character of universality.

Italy has much to share in this regard. Until a few

decades ago, large sections of our population were

forced to seek work in distant lands with different

languages and traditions. Their lives were often marked

by hardship, want and family separation. This chapter

of social history had points of light and of darkness,

but on the whole it was a source of great moral and

spiritual wealth.

Starting in the early 1970s, Italy became a land of

immigration, although it could not yet provide full

employment for all its people. As a land of both

emigration and immigration, Italy is well situated to

address in a constructive manner global migration

today. Italian domestic law is based on the principle of

“soft integration”, designed to provide permanent

residents with an opportunity that does not force them

to renounce the rich heritage of their native cultures.

It is on these grounds that, here before the

General Assembly, I urge the United Nations to raise

the awareness of the community of States and

introduce appropriate instruments. Three instruments,

in my view. deserve to be coordinated and integrated.

First is assistance to the developing countries;

assistance in preventing and quelling the tensions that,

at least in part, give rise to migration flows, as well as

assistance in easing the integration of their economies

with those of the more advanced countries. As we all

know, this is a priority that the United Nations is

pursuing through various committees and through the

enhanced role of the United Nations Development

Programme. We must strive to improve the instruments

already available to us, responding to the visionary

proposals of Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Secondly, as a deterrent to illegal entry, we need

stricter and more consistent law enforcement. Success

depends on effective cooperation between the countries

of origin, the countries of transit and the countries of

arrival. Such efforts should also aim to prevent the

spread of pockets of illegality and organized crime by

promoting greater stability, moral authority and control

in fledgling democracies. This would be invaluable to

securing the support of public opinion in industrialized

countries for cooperation policies.

Thirdly, we need to manage migration so that it is

a source of stability and wealth, to the benefit of all.

For this to happen, migration must take place legally. If

everyone complies with the law, immigrants will be

welcomed in their host countries and become fully

integrated into society.

These three guidelines must be set within a global

framework. There are plenty of organizations that deal

with migration at the international level. Yet while they

provide praiseworthy services, their sectorial nature

means that they cannot have the kind of overall vision

that only effective coordination can guarantee.

A solidarity pact, therefore, is needed to find the

best and most effective way of balancing the supply of

and demand for labour, while fully respecting the

diversity of the people concerned. The greatest

challenge in the age of globalization is to design new

forms of cooperation between Governments that will

enable each to see that its interests are reflected in

international policy decisions. The United Nations

continues to be the most natural forum for adopting

such decisions and ensuring their implementation.

I want to conclude my message today by recalling

the words of a great American President, John

Fitzgerald Kennedy. Almost 40 years ago he said,

“Now the trumpet summons us again ... to

bear the burden of a long twilight struggle ...

against the common enemies of man: tyranny,

poverty, disease and war itself.

“Can we forge against these enemies a

grand and global alliance, North and South, East

and West, that can ensure a more fruitful life for

all mankind? Will you join in that historic

effort?” (Inaugural Address, 20 January 1961)

That is what he said, and this is the wish that I

should like to make here: that the United Nations,

through its indispensable role, may strengthen its

contribution to creating a better and more just world

with the unflagging support of its membership.