Italy has taken "immediate action" and pledged to prevent future Russian takeovers of Italian subsidiaries after Moscow last week transferred heating firm Ariston's local unit to state-controlled energy giant Gazprom.
"The government has a concrete approach to solving the problems that Italian companies have in the Russia Federation and took immediate action after the Ariston case," foreign minister Antonio Tajani told a roundtable in Rome for businesses operating in Russia.
''This meeting aims to assure companies the government's greatest possible protection,'' Tajani added.
The roundtable, organised in the wake of the Ariston Thermo Rus takeover" can become a permanent and not a one-off, " Tajan said.
"We will continue to support Italian companies at complicated moment for them in Russia, deploying all the political and organisational tools we have," Tajani underlined.
Tajani summoned Russia's ambassador Alexei Paramanov to the foreign ministry on Monday, where its secretary-general expressed the Italian government's "extreme dismay" at the "unexpected" Ariston grab, saying it has "no basis in law".
The move to put Ariston's unit and other foreign companies' subsidiaries under Gazprom's "temporary management" was a response to "hostile actions" by Western countries, Russia's embassy said in a statement on Monday.
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