UNDER THE DISTINGUISHED PATRONAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC

In cooperation with UniCredit and the Universities of Naples and Parma, 24 students met in Milan on 17 and 18 April 2012 for the Italian “My Europe” workshop.

The first day, Europe Day, started with a warm welcome by Federico Ghizzoni. As CEO of UniCredit he underlined the importance of Europe and its common currency not only for the bank but also daily life of Europe’s citizens. Count Bernadotte (Board of Directors, Future Think Tank) and Professor Pohl (Founder, ICCA & Future Think Tank) extended the welcome on behalf of the organisors and encouraged the students to seize the chance to enter into dialogue with experts from politics and economics. The first expert was the diplomat Giuseppe Scognamiglio, since 2010 Executive Vice President and Head of Public Affairs at Unicredit. He was followed by Silvia Chiave, Chief of Staff of the General Directorate for Country Promotion at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Valentina Aprea, Councillor at the Regional Committee of Lombary and responsible for Education, Training and Culture. Even though the students had already had the opportunity to ask questions immediately after each talk, the last hour of the workshop was reserved for discussions in small groups were dialogue with the three speakers was more informal.

The second day, Journalism Day, began with a talk by Maurizio Beretta, Head of Identity and Communications at UniCredit. Moreover, in order to prepare the students for the international writing contest, three high-profile journalists shared their own experience with the youth: Luciano Fontana (Co-Director at Il Corriere della Sera), Giangiacomo Schiavi (Deputy Director of Corriere della Sera) and Vittorio Da Rold (Senior foreign correspondent at Il Sole 24 Ore). Also UniCredit COO Paolo Fiorentino did not want to miss discussing current European economic affairs with the students and joined into a spontaneous exchange of ideas.

The jury choosing the three winners of “My Europe” in Italy consists of Maurizio Beretta, Luciano Fontana, Vittorio Da Rold, Professor Massimiliano Delfino, Professor Gino Gandolfi and Professor Pohl.The winning articles will be announced soon.