Senator Renzi, Mr. Alabbar, it's a pleasure to have you here today. Welcome.
We are talking here about connected Europe. Very quickly, what is your experience of Europe today?
It's not good. I think Europe is a great continent with great people, great future, great history. You know that 75% of the world's tourists only go to Europe. That tells you something. But I also believe that it's such a disastrous environment with rules, regulation, anti-progress. But I believe also that the people of Europe, they care about Europe. I believe change will happen and they will make changes because I'm sure they care about their families, they care about their children, they care about their neighbors, they care about their country. And I hope that happens really fast because things are not going very well.
Senator, can the current shocks, tariff shocks have a positive outcome for Europe, a wakeup call?
Yes, of course. I'm here as a pro-European and my friend has to attack and I have to defend Europe. But I hate European bureaucracy more than him because I think European bureaucracy is the biggest enemy for our future. So we have to combine all together. First of all, Europe is a very complicated organization. Why? Because we come from an incredible history of centuries of civil war and after centuries of civil war, organize a new institution able to create peace and to create prosperity is not easy. But Brussels exaggerated, overregulated everything. The most stupid thing of European leaders was the European Green Deal. When we decide in the name of ideology to create a platform unacceptable and too excessive and not good for the goals of Europe, the current situation is what is this gentleman, one of the best entrepreneurs in the world...
Yeah, no, it's true. Decides to open and invest in Europe a lot of money. So he thinks investing in Europe is not advertising, it's not commercial.
It sounds like it's very near to my city. So I know what that means. Okay, he attacked Europe and I agree with him. We can do a lot of things, but he knows how we can make money in Europe and also stay well. And I am investing now because it's a weak environment and I believe it will improve. So I'm doing my investment now.
Yeah. But you are also a man. You invest now because you believe.
Absolutely. I believe in the values, believe, and I take risk also. I'm willing to take risk.
And that is the most important thing. So I believe what is the point? I think we have to find a right mix between the problems of Europe, very, very, very deep, and at the same time the opportunities of this country. There is one problem I'm really worried about, that is the demographic decline. Alabbar, you kindly said the nice things about Europe that are not the usual way of seeing things.
No, but I feel also, you know, I'm a citizen of the world and I feel bad for Europe. I mean, when I go to Berlin and I meet the mayor and they have 500,000 shortage of housing and he told me the planning could take 12 years to approve a beautiful area where we're going to do a park and a huge development, a big park. And he tells me that, you know, we have to study the life of the lizard and the life of the snakes. I said, 'Okay, let the Germans sleep on the street and make sure that the lizard and the snakes are in good shape.' So he said, 'You know, Muhammad, you know, this is democracy.' I said, 'Yeah, in democracy, you guys are so busy with election, election, and we are so busy with construction, construction. It's as simple as that.'
So Renzi, where does Europe have the upper hand as a response?
Okay, it's very interesting to discuss about the system. Every country, every region have a history, tradition, and we believe in democracy. We think democracy is one of the pillars of organization of Western countries that works better than others. I remember Winston Churchill: democracy is the worst system in the world...
He used to say a very beautiful quote: democracy is the worst system except the others. What they think, just a concept as a politician, 25 years ago, 30 years ago, George W. Bush tried to launch some wars in the name of exporting democracy. We understood in the last 25 years it's impossible to export democracy. It's not a good idea. Export democracy. We can defend human values, we can defend human rights, but exporting democracy didn't...
For your excellency, I'm so sorry, but what business do you have for somebody in company or country X that you want to export your way of thinking? It's not your business. That is absurd. I mean, like what you got to do with other people's lives? We have nothing to do with this country's lives. So, who are you? Which letter from God came down to you to say you will be responsible for the world? We want to see this letter. There is a letter there. But I don't think that you know, but...
There is a letter we want to see.
I think that is not a letter in the table of the White House 30 years ago. But I think that happened and as politicians we have to check what happened after this operation didn't work. That means Europe has to cancel democracy? Absolutely not. Not at all. The problem is respect each other, respect the other systems. We have to respect that. But at the same time try to increase every day the system. Thinking about that, democracy today is not election, election, election every five years, but election is every day in the social media because I love what you see. I love what you see. The problem for if you are a businessman, you have a project, you have a business plan, you know what will be the relevance.
I watch social media. Social media is the greatest democracy.
Social media is the greatest democracy, but it's the greatest problem.
But it's the greatest problem for us. But why deal with it?
Because if I'm the mayor of a city and I want to organize a plan and this plan I know will work in the future, will work in the future, but probably will create a lot of problems in the next two years. I will have a lot of negative comments on Facebook, on Instagram. True. But if I think that is good...
