‘President Ciampi is one of the pragmatic and visionary leading personalities who inseparably combines the interests of his own country with the goals of a United Europe. His advocacy of updating Italy’s democratic structure also applies to the Community. […] The Italian president also understands that Europe must represent its views to the world. He thus has become the untiring mediator in dialogues with the Arabian world, especially the states bordering the Mediterranean, the bridge builder between cultures and religions, the pathfinder for peaceful European foreign affairs politics.’