Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Monday asked the European Union for an ''evaluation of the impact'' measures in an EU package to stop climate change will have on industry and the economy in the light of the global financial crisis.
Frattini stressed that ''the world has changed'' since the EU set ambitious objectives for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and an increase in alternative energy sources.
The minister added that while Italy would not renege on the EU objectives, it was necessary for them to be ''flexible'' in order to ''aid development and relaunch the economy''.
''We don't want to renege on these objectives because they are key, but we want to interpret them in a flexible manner,'' he said.
The climate change package will be among issues discussed by EU heads of state at a meeting in Brussels later this week.
The EU is committed to cutting emissions from 1990 levels by 20% by 2020.
