PAOLO GENTILONI

If someone thinks the course of Italian politics will become anti-European, against an open society, against trade, or populist, as they say today, the facts will prove them wrong.

Italy is working to make sure the Brexit shock is an opportunity for a European reawakening.

I know that many in Germany think we have a merry financial policy over here.

I am not in a position to be accurate on news analysis. But what I firmly believe is that Iranian President Rouhani and the government have committed themselves to a process. I don't think this process is about changing the principles of the Islamic republic, but it is about accepting a certain path of opening in the political and economic fields.

If necessary, Italy is prepared to fight against Islamic State in Libya because the Italian government cannot accept a terrorist danger in power just a few hours away from Italy by boat.

The fight against terrorism and fundamentalism knows no frontier. We need to act together and to step up cooperation at a global level.

Europe - with hundreds of millions of people - can accept hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Italy remains deeply engaged in the global fight against terrorism as well as on domestic programmes against radicalisation.

The migratory phenomenon exists, and Europe will have to face it together. The only alternative is a 'beggar-thy-neighbor' solution, in which countries try to load the problem off on their neighbors.

Responding to terrorism inevitably implies military consequences. This may shock some people, but these groups must also be dealt with on a military footing. I won't use the word 'combat' to avoid being painted as a crusader.

We must not forget that culture is the key tool to make society advance and defeat all forms of radicalism.

It is very important to have good relations with the United States.

The E.U. cannot give up on common solidarity. The idea that every country does its own thing, and history and geography decides whose turn it is - whether Greece or Italy or Spain or, who knows, even Poland if there's a crisis in north-eastern Europe - that just can't be. There has to be a common policy.

We are in favor of free trade.

Italian design is a global excellence, on a par with food, culture, cinema, and, more generally, lifestyle.

We always have to remember that we, the Italians, have always cooperated with the U.S., and with Reagan and Carter and Nixon and Clinton, Bush and Obama. And Trump, Trump is the American-elected president. So, cooperation is there.

I want to say very clearly that the government... is ready to intervene in order to guarantee the stability of banks and the savings of our citizens.

Italy is a free country. Its voters decide freely.

On immigration, Europe is in danger of displaying the worst of itself: selfishness, haphazard decision-making and rows between member states.

Italy has no colonial past in Iran.

I'm aware of the urgency to give Italy a government in the fullness of its powers, to reassure the citizens, and to face with utmost commitment and determination international, economic and social priorities.

We need to move forward, from the common currency to the banking union to a common financial policy and, in the middle-term, to a common foreign and security policy. That will take time, because we need to figure out how to deal with those countries that don't always want a more tightly integrated European Union.

The message that "we can't take in everybody" is imperative. At the same time, the decision as to who has a right to asylum needs to be made in Brussels.

Let's put it this way: I am confident that Schengen will continue to be defended. And when it comes to repatriations, we have the same opinion.

We are not perfect. But we have doubtlessly fulfilled our obligations to the EU to a greater degree than the EU has its obligations to Italy, when it comes to the relocation or repatriation of refugees that are in our country. Italy does its homework better than the rest of Europe. Instead of the 160,000 migrants that were to be distributed across Europe, we are currently at 300.