Golden power, Meloni vetoes the company accused of ties to Russia. It’s the first time – Corriere.it

For the first time since she took office, Giorgia Meloni has used the powers of the Golden power legislation to block the takeover of an Italian technology company by a cloud service providers which has links to the Russian giant Yandex.

The veto placed by the Italian government, and communicated to Parliament in recent days, was decided on March 16 and concerns the company Nebiusbased in the Netherlands, which it sought to acquire Smart Technologya small but sensitive digital business founded by Marco Carraientrepreneur close to Matteo Renzi.

Several government sources, first questioned by Reutersconfirmed the veto placed on the takeover by the government and explained that the concerns of the Italian executive are based on the fact that the Nebius were founded by the Russian Yandex, sort of Russian Google.

Since the Golden Power has existed, since 2012, the Italian government has vetoed a 12 attempts at foreign takeovers of companies considered strategic for national interests. In six cases these attempts involved Chinese companies, while last year Mario Daghi, who vetoed Chinese takeover attempts at least three times, blocked the attempt by the Russian Rosatom to acquire Italian Faber Industries, a company has its core business in hydrogen. Ten days ago the first decision by the government of Giorgia Meloni.