Commonwealth Day at Chamber of Deputies highlights Italy’s role as natural partner

 ROME – Italy’s Chamber of Deputies hosted a Commonwealth Day event on Monday, organised by the Commonwealth Club of Rome, bringing together institutional representatives, diplomats, and business figures to mark the occasion across the 56-nation, 2.5-billion-person organisation.  

 

 The proceedings were opened by Fabio Porta, a member of parliament elected in the Foreign Constituency and president of the Italy-Guyana Interparliamentary Friendship Group. Delivering his address on “The Evolution of International Institutions and Global Governance”, Porta described the Commonwealth as “a laboratory of a new democratic multilateralism” – not, he argued, “the remnant of an imperial past, but a true laboratory of the future.” 

 

 Porta invoked the tensions running through the current international order – from the war in Europe to economic and climate inequalities – and pointed to the Commonwealth as a “network of networks” capable of experimenting with new forms of multilateral coordination. He also stressed Italy’s position as a non-member but “natural partner” of many Commonwealth nations, citing shared values and Italian communities established across numerous member states. 

 

 On the question of parliamentary inclusion in global governance, Porta was direct: “To talk about global governance without Parliaments is to risk a technocracy distant from citizens; to think of Parliaments closed within national borders is to condemn us to impotence in the fact of challenges that know no frontiers.” He called for a “double allegiance: to popular sovereignty and global responsibility.” 

 

 Also speaking were Gianni Lattanzio, secretary general of the Institute for Cooperation with Foreign Countries, and Edward Mura, president of the Commonwealth Club of Rome, both of whom emphasised the need to strength ties between Italy and Commonwealth countries, with particular focus on economic cooperation, sustainability and parliamentary diplomacy. 

 

 A diplomatic panel featured contributions from Margaret Ayike, deputy head of mission of the Cameroonian embassy, Sir Ben Batabe Assorow, Ghana’s ambassador to the Holy See, Mmathari Mashao, deputy head of mission of the South African embassy, and Satya Rodrigo, Sri Lanka’s ambassador. Their interventions addressed sustainable development, food security, energy transition, youth mobility, and economic cooperation, and were seen as confirming the Commonwealth’s vitality as a platform for South-South and North-South dialogue. 

 

 The second half of the event gave the floor to the business and associative world. Gaetano De Vito, president of AssoHolding, John Law, vice-president of the British Chamber of Commerce in Italy, Riccardo Di Vizio, president of the Rotary Club Rome International, and Indra Perera, honorary president of CNA World Roma, all highlighted Commonwealth countries as a strategic opportunity for Italian firms, particularly in technology, agri-food, infrastructure and vocational training. Expo Sri Lanka 2026 was singled out as a vehicle for strengthening Italy's presence in the Indo-Pacific.

 

 King Charles III’s Commonwealth Message, read aloud during the event, recalled the organisation’s founding values of democracy, human rights, rule of law, and sustainable development – values which, as Porta noted, could feed into a broader reform of global governance, one capable of holding together “memory and innovation, identity and openness.” The King's own standing, and that of the monarchy more broadly, remains a live question across several member states — as does, in a smaller way, the cultural furniture of British public life: the BBC this week confirmed it would play no part in broadcasting the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race for the first time in nearly a century. Italy, for its part, seems content to engage with the Commonwealth on its own terms.