Two main objectives of the last Eurasian Economic Forum which took place in Verona on 28 and 29 October in Verona. One was unveiled by Antonio Fallico, president of Banca Intesa Russia and creator of the annual event in its fourteenth edition. The other was written in black and white in the final appeal to the G20 and the B20, also read by Fallico at the end of the meeting. The one off the cuff concerned the end of sanctions and embargoes. That writing asked the Greats to use all possible prudence at the time of digital and energy transitions. Brussels cancel them.
President Fallico is an attentive connoisseur and a great friend of Russia, which he has been following as a professional since 1995, that is when he was accredited by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation as director of the Moscow representative office of Banca Intesa San Paolo. Over the years he has intensified the work of connecting the two countries and for this commitment he has been rewarded by both. From Russia he received the Order of Friendship in 2008, the medal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2015 and the Order of Honor in 2017. From Italy he received the Order of Merit for Work in 2006. The annual meeting in Verona was inspired by him in 2007 when he founded Knowing Eurasia. The goal of the association is the one that can be guessed: to get Russians (and Eurasians) and Italians to dialogue to find answers to the questions of the time together. Since then, every year Verona has hosted a powerful forum-event for the numbers, for the quality of the participants, for the objectives it proposes.
Let's take this year's one: in two days, 10 panels took the floor on all the hottest topics on the world political agenda, from the energy transition to the digital one, to the future after the pandemic, 70 speakers, all of high caliber , how do you say. On the Italian side, to mention only the best known of the protagonists, they took turns on the stage set up in the beautiful Palazzo di Gran Guardia, Giovanni Bazoli, Romano Prodi, Marco Tronchetti Provera, Emma Marcegaglia, Paolo Scaroni, Francesco Profumo, Paolo Gallo. For the Russian side, names of equally prestige, from Putin's adviser Valery Fadeevto the scientist Sergey Karaganov, to the two discoverers of the Sputnik vaccine, Konstantin Chernov e Alexander Gorelov, to the president of the industrialists, Alexander Shokhin , to the president of Rosneft, the first oil company in the country, Igor Sechin.
There was talk of appeals. As for the economic sanctions in Moscow, we recall that they were introduced in 2014 in the aftermath of the clash between Russia and Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea by the Russians. They have since been confirmed six months after six months and will be in force until June 2022. Unless Moscow respects the Minsk agreements, signed in the Belarusian capital, and which provide, among other things, for a reorganization of the disputed area mutual agreement between Ukrainians and Russians. Until now, Putin has turned a blind eye, wanting to demonstrate that he is not afraid of sanctions. Yet harmless they were not.
From a political point of view, they have excluded Putin from bilateral EU-Russia summits and from the G8; as for the economy, the capital market to and from Russia, the arms market and the technological collaboration market in the oil sector have been hit; not to mention that entry into the EU has been banned and the funds of 164 people and 44 entities that have had anything to do with the war have been blocked.
And exports of Russian oil towards the EU? How much is Moscow suffering? Here everything is more uncertain. It is true that the contraction was significant after the sanctions, reaching -43% in some moments, but it is equally true, as a study by ISPI demonstrates, that it coincided with the oil and gas crisis whose collapse Pricing started right in June 2014, so a few months after the sanctions came into effect.
Thus, European oil and gas imports from Moscow have not decreased and, paradoxically, if in 2014, immediately after the Ukrainian crisis, as ISPI always reports, the share had fallen to 30%, in 2018, we returned to the maximum values , 41%.
The truth – and the sense of the Verona Forum's appeal is understandable at this point – is that the backlash on EU exports after Moscow's counter-sanctions, for companies it was not painless. It has been calculated that there will be a drop in business of about 50 billion dollars less in five years, although this figure - the experts point out - is equal to only 0,9% of total EU exports. The impact on the Italian market is more significant: the lack of export of machinery has resulted in a contraction of over 2 billion euros in the pre-covid period; while other leading sectors, such as clothing, footwear and furniture, have experienced a contraction of up to 55% compared to 2013. The agri-food sector has also been affected by registering a 45% decrease in exports.
In short, that final "remove the sanctions" of the Forum is certainly an act of friendship towards Russia, but it is even more so towards the Italian companies that have been working part-time with the great Eurasian giant for 7 years. The time is ripe, said companies, scientists and economists in Verona. Of course, a bit of goodwill from Moscow would also be needed. Perhaps showing a willingness to apply those agreements which in the end were also signed by Putin.
As for the written appeal on the energy transition, recalling that "Europe and Asia need more natural gas to stop and reverse their recently re-emerged dependence on coal in electricity production", Verona started "a strong demand, that of shortening the distance between the unrealistic ambitions of solving the immense problems linked to climate change in a few weeks, and the need to have a reliable energy system as early as next winter, on which to speak, from spring onwards, of the great challenges that we all face”.
