ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday that the European Union must remain united in helping Ukraine resist Russian aggression, while stepping up efforts to promote a ceasefire.
Addressing the Italian parliament ahead of an EU
summit this week, Meloni said the diplomatic room for manoeuvre to achieve a ceasefire in the 10-month-old war appeared “extremely limited” but Italy would do its best to promote any such initiative.
“I believe the European Union should take on a more incisive role in this regard,” she told the Chamber of Deputies.
Opinion polls show most Italians are in favour of a diplomatic solution to the conflict and are against sending more weapons to Ukraine, as Meloni’s government has indicated it will do.
As Meloni was speaking, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told the Senate that the government would not disclose details of future arms shipments to Ukraine, taking the same approach as the previous administration led by of Mario Draghi.
In other remarks in her speech to parliament, Meloni, who took office in October at the head of a right-wing coalition, called on the EU to do more to halt migrant flows and said Italy could become an energy hub linking southern Europe with Africa.
She also urged the 27-nation EU to act together to curb energy prices and prevent “speculation”, saying proposals made so on this front were “unsatisfactory” and “cannot be put into practice.”
(Reporting by Stefano Bernabei, Angelo Amante and Keith Weir, writing by Gavin Jones, editing by Keith Weir)
