VERONA, 22 October (BelTA) – Imposing sanctions against any country is a fruitless strategy, European politician, former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said as he took part in the 13th Eurasian Economic Forum underway in Verona, Italy, BelTA has learned.
The forum is running in a very troubling time, Romano Prodi noted. “We are witnessing not only an epidemiological but also a political pandemic,” he said. “Politics makes little contribution to alleviate the epidemiological situation. On the contrary, it aggravates political and economic confrontation. To my mind, global politics makes the situation even worse,” he added.
The tensions in the world have been mounting, the sanctions policy has been building up, the politician said. “I have never condoned sanctions because I believe that they do not work, no matter who they target,” Romano Prodi stressed. “Even if we accept the use of sanctions, they should be introduced as a temporary measure. Nowadays, they are becoming a perpetual element of relations,” he added.
According to him, even in the most difficult times, the West and the East managed to view economy and politics separately, which in a way helped come to more sensible decisions. “The pandemic will affect the world economy and international trade. This should not build a new wall between Europe and the Eurasian region,” Romano Prodi believes.
Despite the pandemic, the forum in Verona has brought together representatives of government authorities, top managers of large companies, political and public figures, diplomats, experts, and journalists from Europe and Asia. This year, the organizers reduced the number of participants from 1,500 to 500, some of them joined the forum online. The speakers include former Italian Prime Ministers Romano Prodi and Massimo D'Alema, State Secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia Grigory Rapota, Member of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission Andrei Slepnev, Secretary General of the Central European Initiative Roberto Antonione, Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko, Italian Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, Head of the Russian Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare Anna Popova, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, Rosneft President and CEO Igor Sechin, Gazprom Export General Director Elena Burmistrova, Chairman of the Board of Skolkovo Foundation Victor Vekselberg, Chairman and CEO of the French concert Total Patrick Pouyanne, and many others.
The general topic of the discussion is a new reality for the global economy – from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The participants are set to discuss economic recovery models, the future of the oil industry and the development of the gas industry in the new economic reality. The participants of the forum will discuss prerequisites for a new geopolitical and socioeconomic order amid the pandemic and the structural economic crisis. Some sessions will focus on overcoming social inequality and poverty as the society evolves, rethinking global healthcare systems in the Covid-19 era, and the dialogue between Europe and Eurasia. A brand new topic for the forum is genetics and genome research and their contribution to medicine, agriculture, the manufacturing and energy industries.
The organizers of the Eurasian Economic Forum in Verona are the non-profit organization Conoscere Eurasia, the Roscongress Foundation, and the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum. BelTA is an information partner of the forum in Verona.
