The signing of the co-operation agreement between the City of Rijeka and the Municipality of Rome was initiated last year by the mayor of Rome Alemanno, who sojourned in Rijeka within an educational and touristic visit to cities abroad with Italian minorities with a strong national identity. The city councillor responsible for educational policies Marsilio emphasised that the students attending secondary schools in Rome had visited Rijeka for the second time within the project titled "The Journey of Memory", within which they had a chance to learn more about historical events and make new friends. The Rome students will go sightseeing, they will visit the Italian Secondary School and the Maritime and Historical Museum of Croatian Littoral.
The signing of an agreement predicted today between the Italian Secondary School and a school in Rome will certainly contribute to establish closer connections between the two cities and will be a first step in the realisation of the intention to connect 36 schools in Rome with their Rijeka counterparts.
"We find our visit to Rijeka, the signing of the agreement with the Italian Secondary School and the invitation to sign the co-operation agreement with Rome a kind of assistance provided to Croatia on her way to the European Union," said Marsilio, emphasising her satisfaction with the example of Rijeka regarding the relationships established with national minorities, in particular with the Italian national minority, the Italian Community in Rijeka and the Italian Union. She emphasised that the City of Rome maintained good relationships with the Society for historical research of Rijeka, enabling the exiles to stay in contact with the country that they come from.
The president of the City Council of the City of Rijeka Pešić-Bukovac emphasised that the initiative started by the mayor of Rome to deepen co-operation with our city had been gladly accepted by the City of Rijeka. "21 representatives of national minorities live in Rijeka who present 14.5 % of its citizens. The representatives of the Italian and Serb minorities are always represented at the sessions of the City council and the members of the Italian national minority have the right to use the Italian language within activities of local self-government" she added.
Vice-mayor Miroslav Matešić welcomed the delegation, while the head of the City department of education and schooling Branka Renko-Silov emphasised her satisfaction with the fact that the elder generation had constructed the bridges that the young of Rijeka and Rome would walk across.
The Rome delegation also includes Mario Andrea Vattani, diplomatic councillor of the mayor, Claudio Procaccia, mayor's commissioner for historical issues, Fulvio Rustic, general consul of the Republic of Italy in Rijeka, Maurizio Tremul, president of the Executive Board of the Italian Union, Orietta Marot, administrative director of the Italian Union and Agnese Superina, president of the Italian Community in Rijeka.
(S.R.)