(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 13 - President Sergio Mattarella said on Friday that global crises have increased over the past year, with a reported 56 ongoing conflicts amid a generalized deterioration of security conditions, receiving the diplomatic corps accredited to Italy at the Quirinale palace.
    "Despite hopes for more cooperation and solidarity", Mattarella said the year coming to an end has recorded an increasing number of crises on a global scale.
    "Recent reports have registered as many as 56 ongoing conflicts - the highest number since World War Two - in a generalized context of deterioration of security conditions", said the president.
    Mattarella went on to say that "Italy's support for Kyiv, firm and determined, has the objective of a just peace, based on the principles and values of the Charter of the United Nations - an objective in the background of Italy's commitment to host in Rome, during the month of July next year, the third edition of the International Conference on the Reconstruction of Ukraine".
    Mattarella went on to note that the ongoing crises could not distract the attention from climate change, calling for an "indispensable acceleration towards a global energy transition", in his speech delivered during the annual meeting with the diplomatic corps ahead of the holidays.
    Speaking about protectionism, the president said "international cooperation finds in economic relations one of its strengths.
    "The claim to be self-sufficient goes against the reality of facts", he added, noting that, "here too, there is a wish to cancel the world's evolution over the past three centuries, invoking themes like national security to justify new forms of protectionism".
    "History taught us that protectionism never brought long-term advantages, sometimes even causing armed conflicts, while free trade - it is the experience developed by the European Union, is a factor of formidable growth". (ANSA).