The Italian Prime Minister is set to visit Putin for his birthday.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is arriving in Russia for a private meeting with Vladimir Putin, a source close to the Italian Prime Minister told RBC. The reason behind the visit was Berlusconi's desire to wish his Russian counterpart a happy birthday, albeit belatedly. The Russian and Italian leaders are set to informally discuss "geopolitics and energy," the newspaper II Journale, owned by Berlusconi, wrote recently.
The Italian Prime Minister's press service declined to comment on Berlusconi's private trip to Russia, but referred our correspondent to an article in The Financial Times which said that Berlusconi would attend Putin's birthday party, to be held in Valdai, the Russian leader's favourite place to meet with foreign experts.
The two-day visit will be largely private, although business issues will be up for discussion, as well. "There will also be birthday celebrations, but it will not really be a birthday party, as The Financial Times has claimed," the government's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told RBC Daily.
Mr Putin often uses informal meetings to speak with world leaders one- on-one. Berlusconi and Putin are expected to discuss the South Stream gas pipeline's construction. The project may start sooner if the two leaders agree on the timeframe for the construction of the sea section, Dmitry Abzalov, senior expert with the Centre for Political Studies, believes. Notably, the construction partners, Italy's ENI and Russia's Gazprom, still have "tactical issues" to sort out. For example, Italy insists that South Stream should include gas pumps on Russian territory, which the Russian monopoly is clearly not too keen on.
Sources close to the Russian Prime Minister failed to confirm The Financial Times report that the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, currently chairman of the Nord Stream supervisory board, would also be attending the birthday celebration. Putin and Schroeder continue to maintain good personal relations. The Chancellor was Putin's guest at Konstantinovsky Palace in St Petersburg back in 2005. On that occasion, Schroeder was in Russia on a working visit, as his political career was drawing to a close. Mr Putin has a tendency to receive very exotic gifts for his birthdays, which range from a tiger cub, whom he gave to a zoo, to pedigree Arab trotters. In 2005, Schroeder presented his Russian friend with a German hunting rifle, and in 2003, during Putin's visit to Italy, Berlusconi gave him a CD featuring his own songs. Interestingly enough, a line in one of the songs goes like this: "I feel like life wants to separate us and I'm scared to be left without you."
Vyacheslav Vorobyov; Alexander Leonov