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This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: Italy’s tough new approach to Russia

Joanna Kao
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, May 2nd, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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EU officials are discussing their toughest sanctions yet on Moscow, and one of Europe’s biggest member states isn’t so sympathetic to Russia anymore.

Amy Kazmin
It’s just not possible to make excuses for Moscow anymore. Moscow as a market of interest is probably over for a good long time.

Joanna Kao
And we’ll tell you about a shareholder campaign aimed at getting big food companies to up their game on health and nutrition. I’m Joanna Kao, in for Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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European energy ministers are holding an emergency meeting today, and they’re discussing Russia’s decision to halt gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland. This comes as the EU is trying to reach an agreement among the various member states to ban Russian energy. Hungary’s prime minister has said he will not support a ban on Russian gas or oil. But Germany is calling for a phased-in ban on Russian oil. Berlin’s willingness to speed up its timeline increases the likelihood of a full EU oil embargo.

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For decades, one of Russia’s biggest allies in the EU was Italy. Even after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Italian businesses opposed sanctions. And the prime minister back then, Silvio Berlusconi, travelled to Crimea to drink wine with Vladimir Putin. But the war in Ukraine has been a turning point. I spoke to our Rome correspondent Amy Kazmin about this.

Amy Kazmin
So, look, Italy came out of world war two with the largest Communist party in western Europe, and it was a part of the political establishment that helped write the Italian constitution. So as a result of the kind of communist influence in Italy’s domestic politics, Italy had a kind of an affinity with the Soviet Union. And then in the 1960s, Italian companies, including the state-owned energy company Eni, started doing business in the Soviet Union. And a lot of Russian entrepreneurs started investing in Italy. And basically there was quite a strong tie. And then comes Silvio Berlusconi, who kind of sees Italy as a bridge between Russia and the west and kind of tries to help bring Vladimir Putin and Russia in from the cold. And Italy, because of its kind of close association and deep comfort level with Russia, had always been seen as sympathetic towards Moscow’s point of view, more sympathetic than perhaps other countries.

Joanna Kao
And even after Putin invaded Crimea, Berlusconi was still supporting him. So what’s changed now?

Amy Kazmin
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been a huge shock to Italy. We also have the fact that Mario Draghi is the prime minister, and he’s a former central bank president of the EU central bank. And he has a very different approach. He is very committed to kind of multilateralism, the European institutions, the, you know, the Atlantic relationship with America. He’s actually been out at the forefront really, really stridently denouncing this as an attack on the entire post-world war two multilateral order. And he looks at this invasion as, I think he’s really, truly appalled, like morally appalled.

Joanna Kao
And what about public opinion? Has that changed as well?

Amy Kazmin
I think the public opinion, of course, is quite aghast at the kind of brutality and the damage that’s being done. There are very strong people to people links in Italy. Nearly 236,000 Ukrainians resident in Italy. They play an important part of the economy. Many of the migrant workers in Italy are middle-aged women who are heavily involved in taking care of Italy’s elderly population. So many Italian families actually have very strong personal links with Ukraine through these caretakers and caregivers and will, of course, have a huge sympathy for what’s happening. And many, many Ukrainian refugees have made their way to Italy drawn by these links. There’s many Italians hosting Ukrainian refugees in their own homes. And Draghi has also been very strong about the kind of the welcome to the Ukrainians and affirming them as a very valued and important part of, you know, the Italian population and the community here.

Joanna Kao
So, Amy, more broadly, how significant is Italy’s shift away from Russia and what does this mean for EU’s response to the war?

Amy Kazmin
So at this point, Italy’s harder stance makes it easier for the EU to act more swiftly, more decisively, more cohesively. Of course there’s not total cohesion because you have Hungary, which is very close with Putin and Russia. But Italy is now kind of firmly in the mainstream of European opinion instead of being this kind of outlier which was pleading Moscow’s case. So I think there’s a very strong political commitment to pare down Italy’s dependence on Russia and Russia’s energy. And I think the business community sees the writing on the wall that there is now going to be an unwinding of this relationship forged over decades.

Joanna Kao
Amy Kazmin is the FT’s Rome correspondent. Thanks, Amy.

Amy Kazmin
Thank you very much.

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Joanna Kao
A group of investors recently pushed Unilever to publish nutrition scores for its foods using external metrics. It was a big victory over the company, which is known for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Lipton teas, among other products. The shareholders were co-ordinated by a non-profit called ShareAction.

Judith Evans
And it does include some fairly major players, Legal and General Investment Management, which is the largest asset manager in the UK; BMO Global Asset Management, which is the funds arm of Canada’s BMO and several others.

Joanna Kao
That’s the FT’s consumer industry’s correspondent Judith Evans. She says this group is now targeting other food multinationals like Nestlé and Kraft Heinz.

Judith Evans
So this issue has been there, kind of bubbling under for many years as obesity rates have risen. But a lot of the so-called ESG focus has been on climate for understandable reasons. However, there is a fresh focus on obesity and health following Covid-19, which affects obese people and people with conditions like diabetes worse than average. And governments recently have also become more interventionist on this, bringing in measures like soft drinks taxes and initiatives to promote physical activity and healthier lifestyles.

Joanna Kao
But Judith says food companies face a tough balancing act.

Judith Evans
They obviously can’t come out and say, oh, we’re fine with obesity. And in fact, a lot of companies have already reformulated their foods. There was a campaign in the UK to remove salt from bread in the early 2000s, which is said to have saved many lives. But on the other hand, companies don’t want to lose their competitive advantage by making their products kind of simply not tasty enough. And neither do they want to come out and say, oh, yes, now you mentioned it, our foods actually are quite unhealthy. So there are many pressures on these companies from many different directions.

Joanna Kao
That’s the FT’s consumer industries reporter Judith Evans.

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Before we go, steelmakers are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. And one of the industry’s biggest companies says it’s reached a milestone. ArcelorMittal says engineers at one of its industrial sites in Canada successfully tested the use of green hydrogen to reduce iron ore. That’s part of the steelmaking process that’s highly carbon-intensive. The company says it was able to replace 7 per cent of the natural gas typically used with hydrogen made from renewables. The company said scaling up remains a challenge as is the amount of hydrogen that would be needed to decarbonise.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

This transcript has been automatically generated. If by any chance there is an error please send the details for a correction to: typo@ft.com. We will do our best to make the amendment as soon as possible.


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