Italy under Western pressure to leave the Belt and Road
The government of Giorgia Meloni is putting the expectations of Brussels and Washington before Italy's own interests when it considers withdrawing from the Belt and Road Initiative, according to an article by Hungarian news portal Mandiner.
Italy under Western pressure to leave the Belt and Road
Geurasia

Italy under Western pressure to leave the Belt and Road

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni with Chinese President Xi Jinping (Photo: AFP/Xinhua/Shen Hong)
Eurasia 23/05/2023 16:24

The government of Giorgia Meloni is putting the expectations of Brussels and Washington before Italy's own interests when it considers withdrawing from the Belt and Road Initiative, according to an article by Hungarian news portal Mandiner.

Rome will review by the end of the year the 2019 Memorandum of Understanding that included Italy in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Western media have already started reporting that Rome will have to choose between the West and China at the end of the year, the article adds.
 
In 2019, Italy became the first and only G7 country to join China's multi-billion dollar infrastructure project. At the time, it was not a surprising move that the country's leadership wanted to open up to the East, but since then, anti-China voices have been growing in Italy, the author, Zoltán Pataki notes.
Photo: AFP/Xinhua/Shen Hong
Yet Italy's economy has not fully recovered even more than 10 years after the events of 2008, he recalled.

According to the portal, the United States offers no alternative because its infrastructure programmes are aimed at the countries of the Global South. The European Union is also prepared to withhold EU funds from countries for ideological reasons, as it is doing in the case of Hungary. 

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