{"id":24447,"date":"2023-04-26T12:39:23","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T12:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/italy-aims-to-play\/"},"modified":"2023-04-26T12:41:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T12:41:29","slug":"italy-aims-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/italy-aims-to-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy aims to play leading role in Ukrainian reconstruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Angelo Amante and Giuseppe Fonte<\/p>\n

ROME (Reuters) – Italy on Wednesday said it aimed to play a major role in the reconstruction of Ukraine and urged European Union bodies to back the rebuilding of a country battered by over a year of war with Russia.<\/p>\n

Italy struck the supportive tone at a bilateral summit with Ukraine in Rome convened to discuss reconstruction initiatives, saying private and public capital should contribute along with international institutions and multilateral banks.<\/p>\n

“We want to play a leading role not only politically, but also by involving businesses,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said speaking alongside Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.<\/p>\n

Meloni, who took office last October at the helm of a rightist coalition, encouraged Italian companies to contribute to Ukrainian reconstruction, calling it a “far-sighted” investment.<\/p>\n

The World Bank, United Nations, European Commission and Ukraine recently estimated it would cost $411 billion to rebuild, a big jump from an earlier estimate of $349 billion.<\/p>\n

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Italy would help Kyiv join the EU and insisted Russia should share the burden of the reconstruction.<\/p>\n

“Any resolution of the conflict will have to ensure that Russia pays for the damage it has caused,” he said.<\/p>\n

In a recent visit to the United States, Ukraine’s Shmyhal said it was critically important to begin reconstruction this year and Kyiv had identified a priority funding gap of $14 billion needed for 2023.<\/p>\n

Rome’s Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti called on EU institutions to pour their own resources into efforts to help Kyiv and said the European Investment Bank (EIB) would be key.<\/p>\n

He added Italy would contribute with a guarantee worth 100 million euros ($110.34 million) to the newly created EIB guarantee fund named ‘EU for Ukraine’.<\/p>\n

Meloni has stuck closely to the pro-Ukraine policy of her predecessor Mario Draghi, despite scepticism from some of her own coalition partners. <\/p>\n

Opinion polls in Italy have consistently shown lukewarm support for Ukraine. One recent IPSOS survey said just 30% of Italians backed sending weapons or air defence systems to Kyiv against 52% in France and 48% in Germany.<\/p>\n

($1 = 0.9063 euros)<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Angelo Amante and Giuseppe Fonte, Editing by William Maclean)<\/p>\n

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By Angelo Amante and Giuseppe Fonte ROME (Reuters) – Italy on Wednesday said it aimed to play a major role in the reconstruction of Ukraine and urged European Union bodies to back the rebuilding of a country battered by over a year of war with Russia. Italy struck the supportive tone at a bilateral summit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":24448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P0JW-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24449,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24447\/revisions\/24449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}