Speech by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the conference “80 years of the Italian Republic” hosted by Sapienza University, Rome

Rome, 19 June 2026

It is a great honour to be here today at Sapienza University for this conference commemorating 80 years of the Italian Republic.^[1]

Eighty years ago, in the aftermath of fascism and the catastrophic Second World War, Italy reclaimed its independence, popular sovereignty and democratic freedoms thanks to the referendum of 2 June 1946 and the subsequent entry into force of the Italian Constitution on 1 January 1948. Our Constitution enshrined the principle “Sovereignty belongs to the people and is exercised by the people in the forms and within the limits of the Constitution.”

So today we are not just marking the end of dictatorship but also the birth of a constitutional democracy, one where the sovereignty of the people is exercised in full respect of fundamental rights and freedoms. This principle laid…