Italy summons Russian envoy over Ariston subsidiary takeover

Rome: Italy on Saturday summoned Russia’s ambassador after Moscow announced it was putting a subsidiary of Italian heating firm Ariston Thermo Group under the “temporary management” of state energy giant Gazprom.

“The government requests clarification on the matter of the nationalisation of the Ariston Thermo Group,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on X, formerly Twitter.

He said he had asked the top official in Italy’s Foreign Office to summon Russia’s ambassador.

“(We are) working also with Brussels, in conjunction with Germany,” after Bosch was also targeted, he said.

In another post, Tajani said he had spoken with the top managers of Ariston, adding that Rome “stands alongside businesses, ready to protect them in all international markets”.

The move was announced in a Russian decree published on Friday — although dated Thursday — and signed by President Vladimir Putin.

It transfers control over 100 percent of the shares in Ariston’s Russian companies — Ariston Thermo Rus, owned by Ariston Holding NV and BSH Household Appliances, owned by BSH Hausgerate GmbH — to Gazprom Household Systems, a subsidiary of Gazprom.

Since invading Ukraine, Moscow has taken the Russian subsidiaries of a number of Western companies — notably French yoghurt-make Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg — under what it calls “temporary management control”.

It cast the moves as a response to Western sanctions on Russian companies.

Western officials and some of the companies have blasted Moscow’s “nationalisation” of private property.