The European Union is making ''important steps forward'' towards a ''balanced'' compromise on its climate package, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Tuesday.
Speaking to parliament a day after a meeting of EU foreign and industry ministers ahead of an EU summit starting on Thursday, Frattini said negotiations on easing the package in light of the global financial crisis had so far yielded ''significant results''.
Among the Italian requests accepted are a clause requiring a review of renewable energy issues in 2014 and the safeguarding of businesses in the manufacturing sector, who will be granted further free quotas for greenhouse gas emissions.
Frattini said another change would be the inclusion of Italian investments in developing Mediterranean countries in the national quota for renewable energy.
He cited as an example Italian investments in Albanian wind farms.
But the minister stressed that Italy would continue to push for a clause requiring the review of the entire package after the world climate conference in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.
Frattini said it was crucial to monitor ''the attitude of the large world economies such as the United States, China and India in the coming years'' so that the EU was not left isolated, and thus ineffectual, in the fight against climate change.
Current EU president France is due to present a new compromise text on the climate deal on Wednesday ahead of Thursday's summit, when European Commission President Jose' Manuel Barroso hopes to hammer out a final accord.
Barroso said Tuesday that there would be ''no compromise'' on the main targets of the deal, which sets a 2020 deadline to reduce greenhouse gases by 20% below 1990 levels through a 20% increase in the use of renewable energy and a 20% boost in energy efficiency.
Last month Italy and Poland both threatened to veto the package unless changes were made to take the global financial crisis into account.
