(ANSA) - Berlin, November 13 - Italian Premier Matteo Renzi
has made a major contribution to the EU by leading his
centre-left Democratic Party (PD) to victory in May's European
elections in Italy in the face of an anti-European climate,
Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Thursday.
The end of the third Silvio Berlusconi government in 2011
meant the departure of "political forces that could not take
Italy out of the crisis and who viewed Europe as a problem," the
new foreign minister told the German newspaper Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview.
"This attitude is very common and must be overcome. The
most important contribution given by premier Renzi so far is of
having won at the European elections against the anti-European
climate".
Speaking separately during a visit to Berlin, Gentiloni
said that "there are countries like Germany that have made great
reforms more than 10 years ago and today are in a relatively
better situation.
But he also stressed the effects of the economic crisis are
now "common" and not just limited to countries like Italy that
were embroiled in the eurozone debt crisis.
"We are seeing widespread awareness in European countries
about the fact that there is not this or that individual
problem, but an overall European problem," he added on the
fringes of a bilateral meeting with German counterpart
Frank-Walter Steinmeler.
Gentiloni hailed the release of an Italian hostage in Libya.
"My day began very early with the good news about the person who
was kidnapped in Libya," he said.
On immigration Gentiloni said that "in the handover from
Mare Nostrum to Triton the name changes but not the address -
and our commitment in fact is multiplied".
"With a shared division of efforts and of repercussions".
"The humanitarian approach is the same," in the EU Triton
mission as in the Italian Navy's Mare Nostrum deployment to save
immigrants trying to reach Italy by sea, Gentiloni said.
"The obligation of rescue remains and it must do".
Renzi defeated anti-EU climate, says Gentiloni
Euroscepticism 'must be overcome,' new foreign minister says