Rome to back renewal of anti-Russian sanctions by EU, to air its stance on Mon - Italian FM
ROME. Dec 6 (Interfax) - The EU summit will endorse anti-Russian sanctions, and Italy has backed the move, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said at a press conference that he attended together with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Rome on Friday.
"We have also discussed sanctions. On Monday, in coming days, we will have important meetings at the Foreign Affairs Council to discuss a renewal of sanctions on Russia on the part of the European Union," Di Maio said.
"Italy has joined, of course, in the European decisions, but would like, nonetheless, to state its own position - both from the political and from the economic perspective," he said.
"Sanctions and countersanctions, what kind of impact they make on our country, on our economy... On the other hand, I would still emphasize the importance of the Minsk Agreements in terms of unfreezing this situation," Lavrov said.
Maio said that he had explained Lavrov "the need to lift one sanction, which in my view, does not match the parameters set up in relation to certain European products."
"By this I mean Parmesan, our remarkable product," Di Maio said.