The agreement with the European Union is a choice that will shape San Marino’s future, but the results will also depend on the reforms the country manages to carry out.
This was the position expressed by Dalibor Riccardi (Libera) today, Monday 9 November, in the Foreign Affairs committee during the review of the association agreement. In his remarks, the councillor stressed the need to overcome isolation, defended the guarantees on sovereignty, and highlighted the work still needed to support businesses and workers.
“I believe today is another important day, if we don’t want to call it historic, one that can give new momentum to our country. We are not closing an administrative file: this is a long, significant process that has spanned several governments and that many people have helped carry forward through negotiation.
It is a process born of a vision, one that today must lead us to this ratification, aware that it is not a finishing line but a starting point, one that will give us the chance to have a new dialogue with the European Union and with all its member states.
It is an extremely important political choice, one that in my view will define San Marino’s future for years and decades to come. We are signing this agreement at a time when the geopolitical situation is marked by trade wars, instability and new forms of protectionism.
Thinking we could stay isolated or live off old schemes would have been political suicide. This is another reason why I believe this step is fundamental.
I agree with what the Secretary said, who used more or less the same words as mine in presenting the agreement. We had a cooperation and customs union agreement that accompanied us for a long time in our relations with the European Union and with the state closest to us, Italy, but I believe it had largely run its course.
Today, businesses, professionals and young people need this agreement in order to be part of the major European flows with clear rules, without being left on the margins of the European Union.
We have questioned ourselves and had many discussions within our own context. I think it is right to reaffirm a concept of sovereignty and political realism: we are associated, not annexed. This is a very clear point: association does not mean accession.
We are not becoming the twenty-eighth member state, we are not giving up our sovereignty, we are not renouncing our national identity. On the contrary, we are building a relationship tailored to our size. We are entering the European market while keeping our state prerogatives firmly intact.
I believe this is a unique achievement, the result of a great outcome concluded by Secretary Beccari, but carried forward over the years by many governments and by the work of the officials who succeeded one another, to whom praise is due. Within the agreement there is protection for our territory and our social cohesion, with specific rules on migration flows and residency.
I believe this mechanism must become a structural rule, subject to review, which preserves sovereignty and safeguards the demographic aspects and the特 peculiarities of our country.
The four freedoms and the strategic sectors that we will define and ratify within this agreement are fundamental for those doing business in San Marino. It is about putting an end to discrimination and tearing down bureaucratic barriers, as councillor Ilaria Baciocchi rightly pointed out.
Anyone working in the economic sector and running a business knows how difficult it is to remain competitive when faced with discrimination or merely being tolerated. This is another step that can and must help us achieve the economic goals we must have as a country.
I too am thinking of the banking and financial sector, which will undergo a gradual process of integration, the result of a will to give everyone the chance to be competitive and to look at the world and at Europe without fear, seeing it as a competitive challenge.
Full access to European programmes on research, innovation, university education and training also represents a challenge that our country must be able to seize, including for the benefit of young people.
Another fundamental aspect — and here further credit goes to those who personally managed the agreement — is the mechanism of prior consultation: we will be informed and involved by the European Commission during the drafting of new rules. It may sound simple, just something written down, but until today that was not the case.
The regulatory adjustments we have had to make have always been, so to speak, simply imposed on us. Now, instead, we will have the opportunity to better convey our specific characteristics during the drafting phase of new rules.
Prior consultation will give us the time and the tools to manage regulatory adjustment without trauma to our internal system. It will support our path within the Association Agreement.
These are issues that call for looking to the future with foresight, a future that must nonetheless start with us. Ratifying this agreement is an act of responsibility towards the present, but also towards the future of our country, because it is not a magic wand and will not, on its own, solve our inefficiencies. We must be capable and responsible in managing it and strive to get the best out of it.
The quality of the reforms we manage to carry out will depend on us, as will how capable we are of modernising public administration and supporting businesses and workers through this transition.
I believe Europe offers us a framework of stability, credibility and development. It is up to the ruling class to prove itself equal to this historic opportunity.
Today is still a day to congratulate those who managed this agreement, adding another piece to this journey. We have said it before and we confirm it again: this is a starting point, not a finishing line.
It is up to us to roll up our sleeves to make the most of this achievement, one that can become historic and important for our country.”
