Italian foreign minister praises Germany for support in pandemic

By dpa correspondents

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio on Friday praised Germany for supporting his country through the coronavirus pandemic following talks in Berlin with his German counterpart Heiko Maas.

“Germany’s support was never lacking throughout the entire period of the pandemic,” said Di Maio. “My trust in Germany since the start of this pandemic has remained unchanged and it is obviously positive.”

Di Maio’s comments will be taken as a sign of relaxation in relations between the two European countries following a period of high tension at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Many Italians bemoaned a perceived lack of German solidarity in early March, when hospitals in the worst-hit northern region of Lombardy became overwhelmed with seriously ill patients.

Particularly controversial was a German temporary export ban on protective medical equipment. Few Italians at the time noted the transfer of a number of Covid-19 patients for treatment in Germany.

Last month, an opinion poll published by La Repubblica newspaper showed that Italians’ trust in Germany had collapsed to 26 per cent in April, down from 42 per cent in January 2019.

Only after Germany dropped its long-standing opposition to common EU debt in mid-May has Italy begun to reassess its European neighbour.

The resulting 500-billion-euro (566.2-billion-dollar) EU recovery fund to help crisis-stricken states such as Italy has helped bolster German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s reputation in the country.

“Merkel and the miracle of Germany which has suddenly become nice,” was how Il Foglio, an Italian pro-Europe, centrist newspaper, put it recently.

With Germany planning to lift travel warnings for 29 European countries from June 15, Italian operators said they were keen to attract German tourists in a bid to salvage the summer high season.

“There has never been an emergency here on Lake Garda,” Paolo Artelio, president of the Lago di Garda Veneto Tourism Consortium, told dpa. “And the Germans know that here they are treated like relatives.”

Ahead of his visit to Berlin, Di Maio said he aimed to promote Italy as a safe tourist destination in light of the country’s falling coronavirus caseload.

Maas, in turn, spoke in an interview shortly before the visit about the many German tourists yearning to travel to Italy.

“Many Germans can hardly wait,” the German foreign minister said.

Last year, visiting Germans spent 7.5 billion euros in Italy, more than any other national group, according to a Bank of Italy tourism survey released on Friday.

The report also said Germans were the most numerous among foreign visitors, racking up some 14 million overnight stays in Italy in 2019, and spending an average of 5.9 days in the country.

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