Italian premier Giuseppe Conte's talks in Brussels on Friday with French president Emmanuel Macron including on a planned 8.6 billion euro high-speed train link between Turin and Lyon "went well and were useful", Conte told reporters.
The project has been stalled for months due to opposition from one of the two parties in Italy's coalition government - the grassroots 5-Star Movement. The other party in the ruling coalition, the far-right League party strongly supports the project.
France and the EU - which is paying for 40 percent of the tunnel - could seek damages from Italy if the project - known as the Tav in Italy - is binned.
Conte earlier this month helped draft a legal document allowing tenders for the delayed project to be launched by an 11 March deadline to avoid the loss of 300 million euros of European Commission funding.
The legal letter sent to TELT, the Franco-Italian company in charge of the Tav, was described as a piece of "legal acrobacy" as it gives Italy and France another six months to reassess the project while keeping its European Union funding on track until any final decision is taken.
