LEADERS of the European Union will meet on March 19th to discuss tightening the economic sanctions they imposed on Russia after its annexation of Crimea a year ago. One country that is not avid for new sanctions is Italy, which is uncomfortable with the schism between Russia and the West. Matteo Renzi, Italy's prime minister, would still like to bring Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, back into the fold. His reasons are both geopolitical and domestic, and rooted in history.

During the cold war, Italian governments (led by the Christian Democrats for the best part of four decades from 1945) were steadfastly pro-American. But Italy’s Communist Party was strong; its leaders actually resided in the Soviet Union. Fiat, an Italian industrial giant, built factories there. After 1989 Russian relations with all European countries improved, but links to Italy grew particularly strong, regardless of who was in power in Rome. Mr Putin enjoyed good relations with Romano Prodi, a former centre-left prime minister. And he is notoriously chummy with Silvio Berlusconi, a former centre-right prime minister, who helped negotiate an agreement between NATO and Russia in 2002. On Mr Putin’s most recent trip to Italy in November, he stopped by the Berlusconi residence at one o'clock in the morning.

On March 5th Mr Renzi visited Mr Putin in Moscow, the first official visit by a major European leader since the Ukraine crisis erupted. There were three main items on the agenda. On Ukraine, Mr Renzi repeated the importance of implementing the February agreement signed in Minsk by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. He also suggested that Trentino-Alto Adige, an autonomous Italian region which was once part of Austria-Hungary, might be a model for the Ukrainian government to consider.

But Mr Renzi's bigger geopolitical worries lie in the Middle East, where civil wars and failing states have sent hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe over the past four years, many of them to Italy. Since 2013 Italy has been trying to win Russian co-operation on pacifying Syria. More recently it hoped Russia might help to counter the spreading chaos in Libya, one of Italy's main oil suppliers, where Islamist militias have recently declared their allegiance to Islamic State (IS). From Rome, the threat posed by IS on the other side of the Mediterranean appears more pressing than Mr Putin’s expansionism in Ukraine.

Third, but just as important, is the sense that sanctions are damaging Italian business interests. Italy is Russia’s second-biggest trading partner in the EU, after Germany, and its fourth-largest globally. In addition to Fiat, over 500 other Italian companies have operations in Russia. Russia supplies roughly 15% of Italy’s oil and 30% of its gas. Russians are avid buyers of Italian luxury products, and tourist flows to Italy almost doubled between 2008 and 2013.

Sanctions themselves may not have hit Italy harder than some other European countries. But what with the sanctions, the slowdown of Russia's economy, and the weakening of the rouble, Italian exports to Russia fell from €10 billion ($10.5 billion) in 2013 to €8.8 billion in 2014. Piquadro, an Italian maker of leather goods which has ten shops in Russia, saw its revenues there fall 40% last year. Roberto Cavalli, a Milanese designer, expects its Russian sales to fall by 20% in 2015 compared with the previous year.

That is especially bad news for Mr Renzi, given Italy’s fragile economic state. The Northern League, a right-wing, anti-EU party that opposes sanctions against Russia, is gaining traction. Mr Putin has met its leader, Matteo Salvini, several times as part of his policy of supporting eurosceptic parties throughout Europe. Italy holds regional elections in May, including in the entrepreneurial region of Veneto where the League is strong. Such political pressure is another factor pressing Mr Renzi to show that he, too, wants to keep the Italo-Russian partnership alive.