I’m delighted to welcome Enrico on his first official visit to London.
He is of course an old friend of this country and made an important contribution at the G8 in Northern Ireland last month.
Britain’s relationship with Italy is one of the closest we have.
We’re proud to serve alongside Italian forces in Afghanistan and we’re proud of what we achieved together in Libya.
We’ve also shown what we can do when we join forces in Brussels to get the EU budget into better shape and support economic growth.
And we have a wealth of business ties - as we’ve seen in recent days, with the new agreement to pipe gas from BP’s field in Azerbaijan to homes and businesses in Italy.
But we believe that we can have even more impact still, and that’s what we have been discussing today.
We share a strong ambition to do more to turn Europe’s economy around and create the new jobs we need.
Britain and Italy face different contexts.
Italy is in the Euro. Britain is not, and is not going to be.
But sorting out the economy is an urgent priority for both of us.
So we’re both making hard-won progress to get control of spending - so we can escape the debt crisis that weighs our economies down.
We joined forces in Brussels last month to bring the same control to EU spending.
And we agree on the importance of the steps underway to bring financial stability to the Eurozone.
But we also know a lot more work is needed to reform the EU and tackle the crisis of competitiveness that holds Europe back in the global economic race.
So we have agreed to put real political commitment behind the talks to open Europe’s trade with the wider world especially the EU-US free trade talks which we launched at Lough Erne last month - which could add £100bn to Europe’s economy.
We’re making common cause to reduce EU burdens that get in the way of businesses growing and creating jobs:
I’ve established a business task force to identify what rules need to be scrapped or changed and we’ve agreed to build on this with good strong proposals to take to the next European Council together.
And we’re going to work together to take the G8 tax, trade and transparency agenda into the G20 and beyond so the rules of the world economy actually deliver jobs and growth, both for our economies and for the developing world.
People don’t always talk about the Anglo-Italian engine in Europe. But what’s clear today is how much we share this reforming vision for a more open and competitive EU.
That’s at the heart of my approach to the EU. It’s what will make Europe a powerful economic force in the world again.
And I believe it is essential to win the confidence and consent of people at home for what the EU is doing.
Finally, we have agreed ways that Britain and Italy will work together to deal with the big foreign policy and security issues in the world.
In particular, we’re standing by Libya in its political transition.
Both Britain and Italy are backing up our promises to Libya’s Prime Minister at the G8 - by rapidly developing plans to train Libyan troops so that Libya can stand down the militias and achieve stability.