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Swiss minister: Italy will back Switzerland in EU talks

viola amherd and giorgia meloni
Viola Amherd, left, with Giorgia Meloni this week in Rome. Keystone

In official negotiations on relations between Switzerland and the European Union (EU), which are re-starting after years of deadlock, Bern can count on the backing of Italy, according to Viola Amherd.

“I have been promised support,” Amherd told the SonntagsBlick newspaper following a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday.

“Italy is interested in finding a solution [to the Swiss-EU deadlock] too,” added the Swiss defence minister, who currently holds the country’s rotating presidency.

+ Deal or no deal? Bern and Brussels restart negotiations

However, Amherd also called for more domestic backing for the Swiss government in its talks with the EU. “The business, education and research sectors in particular must become more involved,” she said.

Economic actors especially have much to gain through a new agreement with Europe. As such, Amherd said, she “expects economic leaders to communicate this accordingly”.

Adapted from German by DeepL/dos

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.  If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch

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