Taipei Times: To what extent do you think bilateral ties have grown during your tenure as Italy's top representative to Taiwan?
Alberto Galluccio: I consider they may have improved for two reasons. One reason is that there was a change of government in Italy, and the new government under Premier [Silvio] Berlusconi and his extreme right party have been very sympathetic to Taiwan's case for a long time ... This may be reflected from the fact that the number of Italian parliamentarians in the [Taiwan-Italy] inter-parliamentarian group has grown a lot, to over 160 members.
On my level ... on the economic side, Taiwan's economy has not been doing well for the past three years ... but it remains our seventh [largest] Asian market. We sell more here than we sell in India. Our trade exchanges, apart from this figure of US$2.5 billion [total trade volume last year], is mainly done by very small operations.
The second element is services. Here, we provide visas. During my tenure, I was able to increase visas from around 23,000 per year to 38,000 now ... We can give a visa in 24 hours ... The other thing I am very proud of is before, other consular services [apart from visa services] were performed by our embassy in Manila. So we were just like a mailbox ... I was able to be delegated the power to do all the consular functions with relevance to Italy.
TT: How about the mutual recognition of driving licenses by the two countries?
Galluccio: That was started by my predecessor six years ago. This has been achieved through two unilateral acts, one from your Ministry of Transportation and Communications and one from ours.
TT: Germany is now working with Taiwan to forge an avoidance of double taxation agreement. What's happening on this front with Italy?
Galluccio: I know that, already, Taiwan signed an agreement with the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands. Those three cases didn't need to go to parliament. Germany has a lot of investments here, so there's a big push on the part of their corporations.
The problem, as far as I can see as an Italian, is that under our law if you make a double taxation agreement, it has to go to the parliament ... Technically, it's possible, but there must be the political will.
TT: EU member states have followed a de facto visa ban policy with regard to the issuance of visas to high-ranking officials from Taiwan. To what extent do you think this ban will be lifted?
Galluccio: The reason for this policy is that once we recognized the PRC and we recognized the `one China' policy, then visits by prominent Taiwanese who embodied the idea of sovereignty contradicted our own ... `one China' policy.
What I'm trying to say is that consenting to Taiwan's leaders having official contact is not only in their interests [so that they can personally present their ideas], but it is also in our interests. Without official contact or having contact only through diplomats in unofficial positions, like me or my colleagues in Rome, may not be so effective.
I believe that in a way if this visit policy is conducted not under the media spotlight but is done discreetly, it might be to everyone's advantage ... That is to say, no official visits, always private visits and if attention is not given [to these visits], then they may be conducive, because dialogue is always conducive to better security.
RSS