President Prodi began his speech by talking of a paradoxical situation, a paradox in the European Union and also throughout the world: we are at the dawn of a new secular millennium, dominated by the web of the Internet and the sorcery of biotechnological advance, and we are living through a genuine change of epoch. However, to focus on the European Union as it is today, and on the subject of government and governance - a word which, at least in Spanish, brings to mind the previous name of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, although it may be an appropriate word anyway -, the most important thing is that the European Union be provided with a good government, and, since President Prodi always defends his home town, Bologna, I would advise him to go to Siena for a while and see something which we all understand: the frescos of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, which speak of bon governo [good government] and mal governo [bad government].