Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila (R) shakes hands with outgoing Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni during their meeting in Bucharest, Romania, April 19, 2018. Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said on Thursday that she talked with her visiting Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni about the active contribution to the dialogue on the European Union (EU) future, in order to jointly meet various challenges. (Xinhua/Cristian Cristel)

BUCHAREST, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said on Thursday that she talked with her visiting Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni about the active contribution to the dialogue on the European Union (EU) future, in order to jointly meet various challenges.

"I voiced the wish to actively contribute to the discussions on the future of the EU, including in view of Romania taking over the presidency of the Council of the EU on January 1,2019," Dancila told joint press conference after her meeting with Gentiloni.

"Romania and Italy are privileged partners, strongly connected from a historic perspective, culturally and linguistically as well, as they share the same vision with respect to a united, solidary and strong Europe," said the Romanian prime minister.

"I believe that together we can respond to some challenges such as Brexit, the multi-annual financial framework, but also the future of the European Union post-Brexit," she added, stressing that their discussions focused on a unitary approach and they talked about solidarity in terms of responding to other challenges that can emerge at European level.

During the talks, the two sides also specifically talked about bilateral economic cooperation.

"There are 25,000 Italian companies operating in Romania...We consider the very important Italian presence and the Italian interest in Romania not as a matter of chance, but as a strategic one," Gentiloni told the press conference, adding that his country is interested in investing in agriculture, technological innovation, energy, banking, the defence sector and in many other strategic sectors.

According to Dancila, Italy is the second trading partner of Romania and the bilateral trade volume reached almost 14 billion euros (17.3 billion dollars) in 2017, a record level for the last decade.

The Romanian community in Italy is certainly part of the talks, as this is the most important foreign community in Italy, with a number of 1.3 million people.

"I have agreed with the prime minister of Romania that the levels of integration over the years have been improving and are now satisfactory," Gentiloni told the press, while the Romanian official mentioned the importance of the Romanian community in Italy, and the Italian community in Romania, both of them representing "a connection bridge" between the two countries.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis also met with the Italian prime minister on Thursday.