The visit by Paolo Gentiloni, Prime Minister of Italy to
India on 30th October may seem like any other in a busy diplomatic season in
Delhi but was significant in many respects. The visit has opened up a new
engagement in the economic and trade cooperation between the countries, which
remains their strongest link, but few except those following this engagement
realise that it has been a decade since an Italian Prime Minister visited India
- the last such visit was by Romano Prodi in 2007.
Expectedly, the Italian Prime Minister arrived with a 15-member CEOs
delegation. India pulled out all stops to make him feel at home - he was
accorded a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourts and
interacted with the Indian President, Prime Minister, Vice President and the
External Affairs Minister. His CEOs joined 19 Indian captains of industry for a
productive session with the two Prime Ministers.
He also spoke at
an event organised by the Observer Research Foundation on the European Union.
Although this visit was stitched together at short notice- the two Prime
Ministers had met at Hamburg for the G20 Summit recently - a slew of MOUs
signed in the fields of railway safety, celebration of 70 years of diplomatic
relations, promoting mutual investments, cooperation in energy, and a protocol
on cultural cooperation, reflect the interest of both sides to open up the
relationship and take it back to the years before February 2012, when an
unfortunate incident in which two Italian marines shot dead two Indian
fishermen off the coast of Kerala derailed the burgeoning relationship between
the two countries. Both sides claimed jurisdiction to try the marines.
Authorities in both countries could not control the snowballing of this issue
politically and entering the complicated legal arena.
Source: Pittimmagine.com,Italy Wednesday, 15 November 2017