Today, at the Foreign Ministry, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hon. Antonio Tajani, chaired a new meeting of the Working Table for Italian enterprises operating in Russia. This is the third working Table after the one held on 2 May on the Ariston case and the more general one on 13 May dedicated to the situation of maritime traffic in the Red Sea.
Convened following the decision of the Commercial Court of the Leningrad Region to order the seizure of about 463 million euros of the Russian subsidiary of the Unicredit group, today’s meeting was attended by representatives from the Italian credit institution, the “internationalisation pole”, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy, as well as Italian business associations in Russia.
Minister Tajani said: “Today’s meeting is further evidence of the attention with which the government follows the work of Italian companies in the world. We want to protect – with every possible initiative – the interests of our companies still operating in Russia”: He added: “This Table is convened on a permanent basis and will meet regularly and whenever there are significant developments to be addressed with teamwork between institutions and companies”.
While commenting on the seizure of the accounts of Unicredit’s Russian subsidiary, Minister Tajani expressed his concern about this second case of an Italian business group being hit by Russian decisions affecting its assets and property, stressing that “our goal is to listen, help, assist and protect the interests of Italian companies and ensure that they can continue to operate.”
The main topics raised by the companies participating in the meeting included the sensitive issue of the repercussions on Italian companies operating in the Russian Federation of the implementation of Article 5-quindecies of Reg. (EU) 833/2014, given the imminent expiry (from 21 June next) of the temporary exemption grace period for EU subsidiaries from the ban on the provision of certain services to entities established in Russia. In this regard, Minister Tajani instructed the Foreign Ministry’s competent offices to find a pragmatic solution – which is currently being defined – that could avoid negative repercussions.
At the same time, some companies raised the issue of the forthcoming sanctions package and of the compensation for companies, which is well known to the institutions that are paying due attention to it.