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Interview: Ambassador Cristina Ravaglia
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a complex structure that provides a huge amount of services in the name and on behalf of the Italian state and of the Italian citizens, either living in Italy and abroad. The Ministry is also called "Farnesina" from the name of the land where it was built, called Orti della Farnesina because it belonged to Pope Paul III Farnese. The Ministry is divided into several DirectoratesGeneral: in particular, the one that communicates with the diplomatic and consular network abroad and with our compatriots living outside Italy is the Directorate General for ItalianCitizens Abroad and Migration Policies.
It is an important and difficult task, the one that is up to its Director, Ambassador Cristina Ravaglia. As we wrote in another interview, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs carries out its many activities weighing on the state budget for just the 0.2%, a proportion that is much lower than that of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of other Western countries with which we usually compare our country.This is not a complaint, but a fact that has to be known. We welcome with pleasure Ambassador Ravaglia in our interviews section.
proportion that is much lower than that of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of other Western countries with which we usually compare our country.This is not a complaint, but a fact that has to be known. We welcome with pleasure Ambassador Ravaglia in our interviews section.
Ambassador, within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs you have been, for almost two years now, at the helm of the Directorate General for Italian Citizens Abroad and Migration Policies. What are the activities assigned to your office?
We have two distinct souls. As for Italians abroad, we follow the activities of our Consulates, first of all ordinary consular services like passports, citizenship and registration data.
Then we deal with the organizations representative of Italian communities abroad, Comites and CGIE, and we distribute the funds to the institutions who teach the Italian language abroad: originally these were intended for the descendants of our emigrants, but that is now changing, with a greater inclusion in local school curricula as language of culture.