The opening speech of the Chairman of the City Council Simona Lembi, in occasion of the official presentation of the first global summit of the Steering Committee of the International Coalition of Cities against Racism (ICCAR) for the first time convened in the city of Bologna.
The President also recalled the dead migrants and missing people the night before in the Sicilian Channel. At the end of the intervention a minute of silence was observed by the City Council.

"I express my greetings to our speakers and mayors from many European and other non-European cities that I want to welcome. I want to greet Mr. Eric Apelgren that comes from the municipality of eThekwini, Durban, South Africa, I wish to greet Mrs. Nabila Rmili, vice-Mayor of Casablanca in Morocco, I wish to greet Arthur Anae that comes from the city of Auckland in New Zealand, Ms. Cassie Palamar that comes from the Alberta human rights commission in Canada and also Daniel Martinez Mayor of Montevideo in Uruguay and the Mayor William Bell Sr. of Birmingham (USA) and all others who intervened.

I want to say just a few words because we all are here to listen to the Mayor and Golda El-Khoury, ICCAR Secretary of UNESCO. It's an important opportunity for Bologna, to see the fact that the European network of cities against racism and discrimination becomes international. I simply want to say our contentment about the meeting that was held this morning in the city of Bologna and remember it only on three issues.

The first is that this meeting is held in Bologna for a very particular reason, Bologna is the city that leads the European network of cities against racism and xenophobia (ECCAR). Mayor Merola has delegated Councillor Benedetto Zacchiroli to become President of the Steering Committee of ECCAR and we are all fans of his valuable work in Europe.

But there is not only a matter of – please consent the term – "technical" reason which brings the city of Bologna to conduct these works but also the fact - I am deeply convinced of this - that it is in the dna of this city to try to hold tight the conditions of who stays better and who stays worse, to try a number of administrative actions to narrow the gap between those who stay better and those who stay worse in our communities.

I will not say a long history of activity - we do not have the time - but I want to remember that this is the city that in the early '90s hosted a major international summit with two persons, Zahira Kamal, and Shulamit Aloni, then the maximum expression of the dialogue between Israel and Palestine, that has choosen more recently to confer the honorary citizenship to Aung San Suu Kyi, she has been called the Gandhi of Burma, to whom we express today all our best wishes, she became foreign minister of Myanmar, more recently this is the City Council that has conferred the honorary citizenship to Muhammad Yunus, banker of the poor, an economist so busy with the actions of microcredit to fight the causes of economic disparity, to allow those social, political and cultural conditions to be more addressed.
So the attention of this city and in particular of this City Council goes ahead to deal in an international field with conditions that do not stop at the limits of the city that we govern and represent.

The second reason of contentment of this meeting is instead a bit in the audience who is not in the first part of the hall, who are mayors, representatives of institutions, but behind the journalists present in the hall - I want to say hello - this is the class 5 A of the elementary school Chiostri that has visited the Municipality here in Palazzo d'Accursio, but has also made a test of expressing the vote in favor or against on behalf of the importance of the rules and has acted as young journalists in the City Council questioning the adminstrative representatives present today on inequality conditions and discrimination present in each city, and it became obvious to all - I have personally followed this meeting – that as well in the cities that call themselves democratic and more advanced there is still a huge difference between the rules that are written and the practice, the possibility of asking for them in the daily lives of citizens demonstrates the need for the commitment of cities.

Finally, it was urged by some councillors an attention precisely today to the fact that in the night before another tragedy happened in the Mediterranean Sea, one year from the so-called facts of Lampedusa when 800 migrants were killed, yesterday the news told us that at least 400 people have disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea and that they are mostly migrants from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and trying to reach our country, motivated by reasons of poverty and not only.

I'll not be speaking of course about the different opinions that exist in the politics of Italy and not only, and also in the City Council, about how to counter this phenomenon, I want to remember the expressions of attention of the President of the Republic who invited us to reflect, he said "we need really to think, another tragedy in the Mediterranean today reminds this to us”, "I want to remind the European Commissioner Federica Mogherini, who said "we need to do more in the management of migration flows", words which certainly call for a renewed focus of the city against these facts and the consequences that hunger, war and poverty have on citizens' life.
I would therefore accept the proposal that I have received to hold a minute of silence for the missing people in the past night in the Mediterranean Sea".