Valdai Club

After a panel discussion in Rome, Italian experts Nathalie Tocci and Ettore Greco discussed how Russia’s overall positive ties with Italy could be useful for improving ties with the EU overall.

While Italy can play a useful role in improving Russia-EU relations, it is ultimately up to the EU as a whole to come up with steps toward normalization, according to Nathalie Tocci, Deputy Director, Institute of International Affairs (IAI) and Special Adviser to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

Nathalie Tocci noted that it would be important to pursue selective engagement on issues, and that the EU would continue to remain united, although it may displease some of members.

She added that Italy remains a friendly country for Russia when it comes to relaying messages to the European Union and vice versa. One very important message is the European unity. "We are in trouble internally and we can't afford to be divided. Russia can use Italy as a relatively friendly country to convey top important messages. What is important to Italy, is important to other member-states", - she said. May be not all EU policy is totally suitable for Italy, but a united policy is more important. The same applies to Lithuania or Cyprus or other EU members. “No one is getting exactly what they want, but it is very important for us to remain united,” Tocci said.

Ettore Greco, Director of the Institute of International Affairs (IAI), said that as a Europeanist, he believes that relations between Russia and Italy “should be developed through the prism of the Russia-EU links.”

“It is important to look through the possibility of reviving of the relations on the EU-Russia level. Italy is one of the countries, which insist on exploring of all the possibilities for economic, cultural and political cooperation,” Greco said.

He added that Ukraine remains a key issue in Russian-EU relations, but that the EU also has many areas where it can cooperate with Russia, such as the Middle East, North Africa and Syria in particular.

He concluded that sufficient progress can also be reached in such fields as energy cooperation, dealing with the migrant crisis and the fight against terrorism.