Russia’s embargo on European Union imports will cost Italy up to 100 million euros (126 million dollars) in 2014, Industry Minister Federica Guidi said on Wednesday.
The one-year measure came into force in August in retaliation for EU sanctions against Moscow for its role in the Ukraine crisis.
“There is no doubt that sanctions on Russia are having depressionary effects on both” sides, Guidi said in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies.
The minister indicated that Italy could manage “without major difficulties” for up to three months if the trade war escalated to the point of Russia cutting off gas supplies to Europe.
Italy, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, has historic business ties with Moscow, and has sometimes been accused of being too lenient in relation to the Kremlin.
Its former premier Silvio Berlusconi, a personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, denounced the EU sanctions on Russia on the weekend as “masochistic” and in danger of triggering “a new Cold War.”
GNA