New Silk Road: Italy is withdrawing from the initiative

This will be prime minister Giorgia Meloni announce on Thursday at a meeting with US President Joe Biden, reported the newspaper “La Repubblica”.

Italy was the first major industrial nation to join the program in 2019. So far, however, this has led to few concrete projects. Before her election victory last September, Meloni had declared that she would not pursue the initiative any further. Rising tensions between Beijing and Washington, both over China’s proximity to Russia and China’s Taiwan policy, would make it too risky to tie up economically with China, Rome said. So far, infrastructure projects worth 900 billion euros have been financed worldwide as part of the “Silk Road” project.