The European Union must approve a gas
price cap amid Russia's war on Ukraine "before it is too late,
Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Monday.
"The EU must approve the price cap on gas as soon as possible,
before it is too late," he said on the sidelines of an EU
foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.
"That is, before prices go out of control and impact even more
families and businesses".
Italy is one of the EU countries that gets the most gas from
Moscow, around 40% of its total supplies, although it has been
scrambling to set up alternatives with countries like Algeria,
Congo, Libya, Egypt and Mozambique.
Di Maio said Italy was going into the FMs' meet "with three
priorities: arriving at peace in Ukraine, setting a gas price
cap, and food security".
He also said Italy would not veto the EU's upcoming sixth
package of sanctions on the Russian Federation for Moscow's
invasion of Ukraine.
"Italy will not put a veto on it, we want to approve the sixth
sanctions package as soon as possible because sanctions are the
only peaceful way at our disposal to bring (Russian President
Vladimir) Putin to the diplomatic table," said the Italian
foreign minister.
"It is clear that EU rules must be reformed, superseding the
principle of unanimity, because a single country, in this case
Hungary, should not be able to block the decisions".
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