President Meloni’s video message to the 2026 Open Festival

Dear Enrico, dear Franco, dear friends at Open, The fourth edition of your online newspaper’s festival gets underway today, and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best for this event. The choice you have made is an ambitious one: to reflect on the major challenges of the future and attempt to find concrete solutions. You’ll be speaking about the economy, employment, the environment, business and culture as well as the complex scenario we are navigating, especially at the geopolitical level. Clearly, all these issues cannot be properly addressed unless we start by considering the situation around us. You will be doing precisely that by also allowing young people to speak, in the city that will become the 2027 European Youth Capital: Parma. I know that, during this event, you will also be trying to respond to a key question: “Can Italy still be a nation for young people?”. Yes. Italy is and can continue to be a nation for young people, in spite of everything – in spite of the difficulties, in spite of its flaws, in spite of the delays that have built up over time and in spite of the mistakes made by the generations that came before today’s youth. There are stil