With its great history and culture rooted in the past, there is good reason why Italy remains one of the most loved countries in the world. Italians have a warmth of emotion expressed directly and without inhibition, an instinct for large gestures in life as in art.
Italy has been a huge friend and ally of post-Independence Malta.
Its advocacy and diplomatic support for Malta’s application to join the European Union and, thereafter, in the corridors of power in Brussels have been outstanding.
Italy has been truly the country to which we feel most closely connected, not only culturally but also through ties of blood and history.
Today, Italy finds itself facing an existential battle against the silent killer of coronavirus which is cutting a swathe through its population.
It has suffered the highest recorded death toll in the world of more than 6,000 citizens. In a country where families, as in Malta, are so close-knit, the impact is enormous.
The Italian health service, especially in the industrial province of Bergamo and others in northern Italy, has come under severe strain.
Frontline doctors and other medical staff have been fighting a heroic battle against the virus.
Many have tested positive and some have lost their lives.
Across Lombardy, where two-thirds of Italy’s total cases have been registered, undertakers are stepping in to fill a new heart-breaking role as relatives trapped in quarantine lose the chance to say goodbye.
This is the pitiful scale of the awful disaster that has befallen our nearest neighbouring country in Europe. Just as individuals in Italy – especially among the over-stretched medical and nursing personnel and other emergency workers – have shown an amazing sense of duty and solidarity, nations and nationalities should be expected to band together and fight this global pandemic.
But European countries have each ploughed their own furrow regardless of their neighbours.
The European Commission has been largely mute and ineffectual. Although there is belated talk of a European ‘Marshall Plan’, this is focussed on the battle to save the EU’s economies.
At the very time when Europe needed a coordinated multilateral health plan, Europeans are discovering that, just like 2008, the system was simply not prepared.
One of the key lessons to come out of this catastrophe is that the only way to fight a global pandemic is through a coordinated response, where countries share resources, information and strategies to battle its spread.
It was therefore heartening to see the way that China and Cuba have rallied to Italy’s cause in their need. The Chinese Red Cross has flown to Italy with Chinese doctors to help understaffed Italian hospitals.
After a first group of Chinese doctors flew to Rome last week, a second group with doctors, nurses as well as thousands of masks and 40 ventilators donated by China’s government arrived last week. Cuba has sent a team of 52 doctors and medical professionals to help.
Although our practical means of support are limited, the people of Malta can only express their deep and heartfelt solidarity for the people of Italy in the tragic situation in which they find themselves today.