Italian Ambassador:Empires are born, fall apart, what we can learn from each other stays

Italy's Ambassador in Bucharest Marco Giungi talked on Monday at the reception for Italy's Day, about the bilateral dialogue, the current political context from the country he represents and about the fact that the essence of the relation between states is "that we can learn from one another." 

"I will not bother you with figures. You already know them and the idea is not about ranking first in one domain and second in another domain. It rather has more to do with growth. More and more Italians come to Romania and the other way round. An ever-increasing number of exchanges of goods are made and our ties become stronger," Giungi said. 

He considers that one of the reasons for such success is "the cultural and linguistic closeness but also due to the fact that once conditions have been favorable, inter-human relations flourished." 

"The Italians came here and they stayed (...) The Romanians in Italy are no longer new-comers," the ambassador pointed out, reminding that "we are Latins. We take pride in many things but we do not believe that the things we are proud of make us better than the others. We know empires come to life and fall apart and what stays behind is what we can learn from each other." 

Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister Teodor Melescanu underscored that Romania and Italy have a "very lively" political dialogue, saying that "Italy is the most important partner in our economy. You are the second largest economic partner but you have the largest number of investors in Romania" and brought to mind that one of the most important ties between Romania and Italy is created by the two countries' citizens - "the Romanians who live in Italy - the largest community outside the country - and the Italians' representatives in Romania." 

During the ceremony, Italy's Ambassador awarded "The Star of Italy" in rank of Knight to cellist Marin Cazacu.