MILAN - If you are the President of Russian Federation and you aim to break a political isolation the International Community provided as a response of your warship towards independent states you can always trust on Italy, even when the Italian PM is the less Russophile Italy had never had. On Tuesday, June 8, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, paid a visit to the International Exposition EXPO in Milan.
By visiting Milan's EXPO, Putin paid his first official visit to a member state of the G7, the group of the most influent countries of the West -United States, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy- since Russia has been excluded from this group after the illegal military annexation of Crimea. Such a violation of the International Law also led the Trans Atlantic Community to provide economic sanctions in order to move Russia to halt its warfare in Ukraine, Georgia and European Union's member states of Central-Eastern Europe.
Putin's visit to Milan -anticipated by a shameful panegyrical interview on the most influent Italian newspaper "Il Corriere della Sera", in which the President of Russia denied the existence of any Russian warfare towards Ukraine and Georgia thanks to the complicity of the two Italian "journalists" who provided the interview in an openly a-critical way- demonstrated once again that Italy is the most pro-Russian country within both the European Union and the G7. -link to interview http://www.corriere.it/esteri/15_giugno_06/intervista-putin-corriere-non-sono-aggressore-patto-europa-ab5eeffe-0c0a-11e5-81da-8596be76a029.shtml -
In fact, by inviting Putin to EXPO, the PM of Italy Matteo Renzi de facto allowed the Russian President to show the international community to be able to break any political isolation thanks to "allied" countries and "Russian-friendly" head of Government with whom Russia's President maintains bilateral, and in some cases even personal, ties.
Although it could be a disappointing surprise -in particular by considering that the Italian PM Renzi always advocated sanctions on Russia and openly supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine- the pro-Russian initiative of PM Renzi is, in the end, coherent with a traditionally pro-Russian diplomatic initiative of a country, Italy, which is deeply tied to Russia on the political, energy, economic and cultural domain.
According to the official website of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Italy, by maintaining privileged political relations with Russia based on interdependence and common interests, advocates Russia's integration within the organizations of the Western Community, such as the European Union, NATO, WTO and OECD. Italy also urges the need for an inclusive approach of Russia within the West that the official website of the Italian MFA describes as "balanced and realistic" -link to Italian MFA website http://www.esteri.it/mae/it/politica_estera/aree_geografiche/europa/i_nuovi_rapporti.html/
According to such guidelines, it is not a surprise if the High Representative for Foreign and Defense Policy of the European Union, Federica Mogherini, always argues the necessity to keep the door open to the dialogue with Russia. For the same reason, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, is skeptical about maintaining, and eventually strengthening, economic sanctions on Russia in case Russia does not respect the Minsk Agreements.
With respect to economy, Italy is the third largest partner of Russia with 500 Italian firms operating in Russian key export sectors such as machinery, mechanical equipment and textiles. Important Italian companies such as Pirelli, Gruppo Marcegaglia, Finmeccanica, Danieli, Ferrero, Indesit, Cremonini, Coeclerici and FIAT consolidated their position within the Russian market over the last years.
On the other hand, Russian investments within the Italian market are stronger and stronger, as Gazprom, Lukoil, Renova, Severstal, RusAl, Evraz, Russky Standard and Vimpelcom demonstrated by buying stakes of important Italian firms such as Gancia and Wind.
With respect to banking sector, Unicredit Banca, Banca Intesa, Banca Popolare Italiana, Monte dei Paschi di Siena and Unione Bancaria Italiana have both stakes and active offices in Russia, so that they are ranked between the most active foreign banks within the Russian banking market.
The sector in which Italy mostly depends on Russia is energy due to the tight relationship between Russian national energy major Gazprom and the Italian national concern ENI and ENI's daughter company Saipem based on common pharaonic projects strongly opposed by the European Union.
The Southstream pipeline, hopefully aborted thanks to the intervention of the European Commission against a pipeline conceived by Moscow to raise the energy dependence of the EU to Russian gas supplies, is the most famous energy initiative that tied Gazprom and ENI. The Turkish Stream pipeline, a project conceived as an alternative to Southstream in order to oppose the tentative of the EU to diversify gas supplies, is likely to be realized thanks to a tight partnership between Gazprom and Saipem.
Finally, Italy is deeply tied to Russia in the cultural domain due to a fatal attraction towards Russia of a post-communist Italian intellectual "elite" that acts in the Italian Universities and exercises a "moral" and ideological pressure over the mainstream medias and the editing market.
In the post-war period, the Italian intelligentsia was almost totally tied to the Italian Communist Party, which, according to the famous "Gramsci theorem", succeed to maintain control over culture, University and Justice, although it always failed to overthrown the Christian Democracy from the head of the political power.
Moreover, the pro-Russian orientation of the Italian intellectual "elite" is tied to a well eradicated anti-Americanism within the Italian society that moved, and still moves Italian "intellectuals" to consider Russia -both the czarist, the soviet and the Putin's one- the natural counterbalance to the United States that Italy should support in order not become "slave of the American imperialism".
Renzi is the less Russophile PM Italy had ever had
Although he made a big strategical mistake from the diplomatic point of view, the Italian PM Renzi still remains the less Russophile head of Government Italy had never had. In addition to his open support to both the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the economic sanctions provided by the Western community to oppose Russian warfare in Eastern Europe, Renzi openly supported the realization of the Trans Atlantic Pipeline -TAP- a project endorsed by the European Commission to drop the dependence on Russia's natural gas by carrying gas from Azerbaijan.
Moreover, Renzi has been the one PM of Italy who was able to establish, and maintain, an assertive cooperation with the United States thanks to his tight political and personal ties with US President, Barack Obama.
In so doing, PM Renzi succeeded to definitively cancel the era of Silvio Berlusconi, a former Italian PM whose personal friendship with Putin led Italy to support Russia's energy and economic interest even when it was in open contrast with the one of the European Union and the Trans Atlantic Community, as demonstrated by the support of the Italian Berlusconi-led governments to Gazprom's Southstream and Blue Stream pipelines.
Due to his personal friendship with Putin, Berlusconi's good relationship with US President George W Bush progressively deteriorated. Moreover, Berlusconi became almost totally isolated within the European Union too.
Renzi should support UK, Denmark and Poland to strengthen NATO in Central Eastern Europe
Although the invitation of Putin to EXPO helped Russia to break the isolation that the Western Community hardly succeeded to provide, PM Renzi still has the opportunity to remedy to such situation by supporting the struggle of several EU member states such as the UK, Denmark and Poland to push for a strengthening of NATO in Central Eastern Europe.
If he will follow the struggle for a stronger NATO defense in the Eastern flank of the North Atlantic Military Alliance headed by the British PM David Cameron, the Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt and the Polish President-Elect Andrzej Duda, PM Renzi will demonstrate himself to be really aware of the danger Putin's warfare in Ukraine represents for the security of all member states of the European Union.
However, despite of his good understanding of the situation in Ukraine and his tight relations with President Obama, PM Renzi is unlikely to resist to the pressure of the Italian economic and energy powers which, helped by a strongly assertive Russian lobby within the Italian political scene, aim to move the Italian government to still act as the "Fifth Column" of Russia within the European Union, as it did under the era of Berlusconi.
Matteo Cazzulani
Strategy XXI
@MatteoCazzulani
