Meloni at the inauguration of Piazza Pia: "Capable of small civil miracles"

Talk about a “small civil miracle” which demonstrates the response capabilities of the public administration, and of the country in its various aspects, in the face of the most demanding challenges. And it refers to the spirit of spiritual pilgrimages, to the ‘lightness’ of the backpack of those who make a journey, as a wish for a new year focused precisely “on the essentials”. Giorgia Meloni thus intervenes in the ceremony for the reopening of Piazza Pia in view of the Jubilee. ”

“We put all the public and private entities involved around the same table with the control room. We removed in real time the obstacles and difficulties that sometimes arose. I don’t want to call it a miracle because that would be excessive, but it can be defined as a small civil miracle of those we are capable of when we know how to remember our value”, he explained.

Meloni speaks of the “Jubilee method” to reiterate that “in Italy things can be done, well and quickly and the public administration can amaze whenever it wants, when it is motivated by great objectives such as the Jubilee, a historic event. I think you have to do it even with small daily goals.”

“The pilgrim’s backpack is light – he says in another passage of his speech – because it contains only the essentials and therefore the wish that I wish for all of us for 2025, which is also a Holy Year, is that each of us, and we all, as a national community, manage to follow the same path, that is, to put in our backpacks only what is really useful to go faster but also to be able to see what is truly essential”. “We must remember that when we do things, we do them well“.

The judgment on Rome

“In a few hours the Holy Father will begin the Jubilee with the opening of the Holy Door. From tomorrow night, Rome will open its doors even more than it does every day”, the prime minister said again. “Millions of pilgrims will reach St. Peter’s and the other Jubilee bases. And in these two years – he adds – we have all worked hard and well, to essentially ensure that the Eternal City is up to the task and up to the standards expectations”.

The renovation of Piazza Pia

The construction site symbol of the Jubilee was inaugurated. Piazza Pia, the place where the most important events of the Holy Year will take place, has been enlarged, thanks to the closure of an unused underpass, and made more liveable and safe. The creation of the new space and the extension of the Lungotevere in Sassia underpass was managed by Anas (FS Group). The pedestrian area directly connects Castel Sant’Angelo and via della Conciliazione. “It is a great square of embrace, where a new season of collaboration and union with the Holy See is completed and relaunched”, said the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, who spoke at the event organized for the opening of the new Piazza Pia and the extension of the underpass.

The works were completed in 450 days, as highlighted by Aldo Isi, CEO of Anas: “It was a complex engineering job. What you see”, he told journalists, “is the square above, aesthetically beautiful; below there is the heart, there is the underground road network, there are the sewer collectors that have been moved, there are all the technologies. It is the result of great team work.”

“The work we are inaugurating this morning is probably the most impressive, an investment of over 85 million euros. It essentially allows us to achieve two objectives: on the one hand, making traffic in this area faster; on the other, as has been mentioned, return a large and safe pedestrian space”, concluded Meloni.