Yes to the agreement with the European Union, but the pace of change on credit for families and businesses needs to pick up.
Nicola Renzi (RF) addressed the Foreign Affairs Committee today, Monday 9 November, calling for a European banking operator to establish a presence in San Marino, one capable of offering competitive terms.
The councillor defended the Association Agreement as a tool to give the country a voice in its dealings with Brussels, echoed calls for greater public involvement, and offered the opposition’s cooperation on the reforms ahead.
“I’m not sure whether we’re making history or making the future, because in my view today we’re making the future, taking an important step for what we need to do now and in the years to come.
If we want to make history — and it’s fair to do so too — then we should talk about the Mazzini account, about Banca del Titano, about the ECHR rulings that have just come in, about everything that happened at the Central Bank and in the courts over past years, about whoever may have taken bribes to hand out banking licences.
If that’s what we want to do, tell me, and we’ll spend fifteen minutes on it.
If instead we want to talk about serious matters — that is, the Association Agreement — then let’s start talking about that.
That said, starting with Banca CIS, if we’re going to address all the other cases too, I have no problem discussing them.
In the so-called criminal conspiracy case involving Banca CIS, which has just seen its first-instance ruling — shockingly — I wasn’t even called as a witness.
I really don’t believe I have anything to hide. On the contrary, these matters need to be discussed in depth, together with all the other scandals that have affected this country, especially the ones that have struck it recently and are still doing so.
That’s the big problem, and here I agree with what Councillor Zeppa said.
Let’s talk instead about the Association Agreement, which I believe is the most important matter today, if we want to do right by our citizens. I genuinely thank everyone who worked to achieve this result: as I say this, I picture people from very different parties, some with no party affiliation at all, officials from the administration, all working with their heads down to reach this goal.
I symbolically thank everyone who served as Secretary of State before me, and today Secretary Beccari, who embodies the work done to reach this important milestone.
It has been an extremely difficult milestone, often called into question even by internal divisions — divisions sometimes created simply to prompt reflection on paths already set, or to appear more or less pro-European than others. I have always considered that a very secondary matter.
I do see the elephant in the room: while we should all be overjoyed at ratifying an agreement we’ve been working on for more than ten years, there is a strong demand — one I feel too — for consultation, for a referendum, for public involvement. We cannot deny it, because I think we all see it.
We must keep talking and provide concrete proof of how useful the Association Agreement can be and how it can affect the daily lives of San Marino’s citizens.
Let me try to make the point once more through a paradox. The debate over the European Union is more alive than ever.
There are the usual critics who say it’s dead — they’ve been saying so for decades — or that it will die.
Yet the European Union is still there, and it’s making enormous strides forward. When we talk about roaming and all the things achieved thanks to the European Union, we always tend to forget them.
Today it’s making progress not only in managing the single market, which is expanding further through agreements like the one with Mercosur, but also in common defence policy.
And here’s the paradox: which San Marino citizens should care most about the Association Agreement? Precisely those who see Europe not as an opportunity, but as a danger to be kept as far away as possible.
The agreement provides us with the framework of rules without which we would be at the mercy of the European Union’s sheer weight — if nothing else, because of the imbalance in scale: thirty-five thousand inhabitants against five hundred million.
It’s obvious we have no chance of competing on that basis.
The agreement, as we’ve said many times and as the Secretary has reiterated in recent briefings, gives us — through the Association Committee, the Joint Committee and the Parliamentary Committee — the essential framework to assert the voice, the demands and the ideas of the Republic of San Marino in dealing with such a structured entity.
Without this agreement, we would not be living in the reality we’ve known since 2015, when negotiations began, but in the previous one, where simply securing a meeting with an EU representative required moving mountains.
Today we have signed a regulatory framework that gives us the right to have a say, to engage in dialogue and to put our positions on the table — often even before certain EU legislative or regulatory acts are adopted.
What begins today is a permanent negotiation, a permanent dialogue built on solid, precise and well-defined legal foundations. That is the great change.
Sovereignty isn’t recognised because a country of thirty-five thousand people writes about it every day in the newspaper or claims it in bars, but when twenty-seven member states and the European Union’s supranational institutions recognise it by signing this agreement.
That’s the fundamental point. Someone may still say they’re not happy about it regardless — fair enough, they’re entirely free to, and we must respect that.
But this is rationally and ontologically beyond dispute, because that’s simply how international agreements and foreign policy work, regardless of how one chooses to see it.
The other major issue is the bilateral sectoral agreements between the Republic of San Marino and other countries: these too, without the framework agreement with the European Union, would become practically impossible. Think of waste management, energy and water supply, cybersecurity — which I imagine we’ll discuss during the communications session — the banking and financial system, and mobility.
These are all matters that touch the practical, everyday life of every citizen.
Agreements of this kind would become practically impossible if we said no to the Association Agreement.
Having said that, is the agreement the magic word that solves every problem? No, absolutely not. I think it’s clear we’re in favour of it. If anyone still wants to play games with it and cast doubt on it, so be it. We don’t care whether we gain one more vote, one less, or a hundred less: we say these things because we believe in them and we are convinced of them.
We do it above all for our children and for future generations, who will have to run this country — generations who no longer want entrenched privilege but merit, who want to be challenged and to put themselves on the line, ideally while staying here, without having to emigrate because a handful of people already decide what the country’s future should look like.
From today, however, another crucial contest begins. We’ve told the Secretary this, and I hope you’ll allow me one slightly discordant note: we fear we may be somewhat behind. That is a concern of ours, and time will tell.
We are in opposition, and we must do two things: act as a spur to seize every opportunity this brings, and offer our full willingness to cooperate in finding the best solutions, asking for nothing in return.
This needs to be spelled out clearly, because there are always some who try to twist what is said.
We’ll see whether we are indeed behind, or whether we’re able to rise to these challenges.
One area where I am quite concerned is the banking and financial sector — one of the fundamental reasons we are pursuing the Association Agreement. I want to finally see a leading European operator set up in the country and operate from here, guaranteeing credit to families, individuals and businesses on competitive terms, matching those available in financial services across European countries.
It isn’t right that a company operating in San Marino should face worse conditions than a company operating in Cerasolo.
On this issue, I don’t see the will to move forward decisively and firmly. I still see us chasing after the various rescues of our history, rather than pursuing an overall plan for consolidation, relaunch and openness.
I still hear talk of the fifteen years envisioned for our banking and financial system. But if we wait fifteen years, there will be no more San Marino — I think we all know that. That’s an issue.
On the other hand, there are sectors making progress: good news on the EGTC, good news on the customs agreement and on San Marino’s documents — things we’re only able to achieve, once again, thanks to the Association Agreement. That well-known customs agreement was something we began negotiating back when I was Secretary of State.
Italy had given its approval, only to later say it was a matter for the EU and required Brussels’ green light. We wouldn’t have it without the Association Agreement, and this gives our residence permits a fundamental strength they currently lack.
That’s another major advantage.
Today we are here to carry out this act of ratification after more than ten years — fifteen, really, since we first began talking about this agreement. I’ll say two things. First: if we truly weren’t convinced this was the right path, perhaps we should have said so before spending fifteen years working on it. That seems only reasonable.
Second: if this isn’t the path some wish to take, I respect the positions of those who hold that view. I’m thinking, for example, of Motus, which has made it a political banner and a political battle, with a position I believe has a genuine political basis.
Everyone is entitled to pursue their own positions, but one must also say what the alternative is for securing an international standing for the Republic of San Marino, if we don’t want to follow this path through to the end.
Finally — and I’ll close on this — unfortunately there are also others, a shrinking but increasingly determined group: those who see their entrenched privilege being called into question.”
