Russia, Italy vow to expand ties despite sanctions
Russian President MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte pledged Wednesday to boost economic ties between their countries despite European Union sanctions against Russia. They also agreed to pool efforts to help settle the political crisis in Libya.
Making his first trip to Russia since taking office in June, Conte hailed the country as an essential global player and invited Putin to visit Italy in the near future. He said he hoped Moscow would participate in a conference on Libya taking place next month.
The Italian premier said the split between the European Union and Russia over the Ukrainian crisis had lasted too long, adding that Italy hopes to convince its EU partners about the need for dialogue.
“For Italy, the sanctions aren’t the goal, they are an instrument that would be better left behind,” said Conte, who was a law professor before he became the consensus prime minister pick of the populist coalition now governing Italy.
Following hours of talks between Putin and Conte in the Kremlin, public officials and business leaders from the two countries signed a slew of trade and investment agreements intended to bolster bilateral ties badly damaged by EU sanctions against Russia and by Moscow’s retaliatory moves.
Bilateral trade has slowly increased in recent years as the Russian economy has climbed out of recession, but remains a fraction of what it was before EU penalties over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support for an insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian crisis has caused a split and blocked the dialogue,” Conte said. “We can’t allow that. We should leave that period behind.”
Putin said Russian-Italian trade reached $24 billion last year and compared the figure to the nearly $54 billion in 2013, the year before the EU sanctions crippled bilateral ties.
“Regrettably, Italy’s niche in the Russian market has decreased but the volume of our economic ties have remained strong,” Putin said as he greeted Conte.