Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday that restoring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz was of vital interest for her country and the European Union, as she pledged to work with partners to achieve that aim.
Following US- Israeli attacks , Iran restricted traffic through the Strait to pressure its enemies, in a move that drove up energy prices as around a fifth of the world's oil and gas pass through the narrow waterway.
As part of its proposals to end the war, Tehran wants to charge fees for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
"If Iran were to succeed in obtaining the authority to apply additional tariffs to transits through the Strait, this could still lead to economic consequences and shifts in trade flows," Meloni told the lower house of parliament.
"We are already working with the UK-led coalition for the Strait of Hormuz, which includes more than 30 countries, to try to build security conditions that allow for the full restoration of freedom of navigation and supply," she added.
However, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday that Italy would not send any ships to patrol the area in the absence of a UN mandate.
Meloni condemned all violations of the two-week ceasefire deal agreed between the US and Iran earlier this week.
She also urged Israel to end military operations in Lebanon, and, with opposition parties accusing her of being too close to President Donald Trump , reiterated her opposition to the U.S. decision to attack Iran.
"We have come within a step of the point of no return, but we now face a fragile prospect of peace that must be pursued with determination," Meloni said. Italy PM suggests suspending EU spending rules over Iran war Meloni said the European Union should consider temporarily suspending its strict spending rules if the Iran war and the resulting energy shock worsens.
But Brussels cautioned that under EU rules a suspension was possible only if the 27-nation bloc was to experience a severe economic crisis -- a condition currently not met.
"If the Middle East crisis were to experience a new escalation, we should seriously consider the issue of a European response not dissimilar in the approach and tools to that deployed in response to the (Covid) pandemic," Meloni told the Italian parliament.
"In that case, we believe it should not be taboo to discuss a possible temporary suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact. Not a waiver for individual member states, but a generalised measure."
EU members are bound by spending rules obliging them to keep the public deficit below three percent of economic output and debt at 60 percent of GDP.
But the EU can suspend the rules in exceptional circumstances and crises, as it did during the coronavirus pandemic when states had to prop up their embattled economies.
"The condition for activating the general escape clause is to have a severe economic downturn in euro area or the European Union as a whole," EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis told European lawmakers in Brussels.
"We are currently not in this scenario," he said.
EU rules already allowed member states for some "fiscal leeway" to cushion negative impacts on the economy, he added.
Italy narrowly missed bringing its deficit below the three percent target in 2025, with its deficit at 3.1 percent.
Meloni's government has temporarily cut fuel excise taxes in the face of rising energy prices following war between the United States and Israel, and Iran.
But she said it remained ready to go further.
"Faced with the risk of the most severe energy shock we've seen in recent memory, the possibility of further price increases for energy, fuel, and consumer goods, and the risk of seeing entire supply chains interrupted and our economy stalled, it's the prime minister's precise duty to do everything possible" to keep prices low, she said.
Meloni recently visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to try to secure energy supplies for Italy from a region that she said provides around 15 percent of her country's needs.
She said Thursday she will also soon visit Azerbaijan.
It was the first time that the Italian leader spoke in parliament since a bruising defeat in a justice reforms referendum two weeks ago that led to some resignations in her government team.
In her roughly one-hour speech, she ruled out any wider cabinet reshuffles and pledged to serve a full parliamentary term, which is scheduled to run until the second half of next year.