"We are all engaged in the fight against climate change, it is sacrosanct to defend the environment, but environmentalism cannot become our new religion, that they come and tell us that the environment is above everything else and perhaps we forget about man," he said.
Tajani was speaking at a Wine and Health Conference organised by farmers group Coldiretti and the Filiera Italia ancillary firm association at Vinitaly in Verona.
"When environmental policy goals are not attainable, you damage agriculture and industry," he said.
"And we are a country of the real economy."
Earlier last week, on the sidelines of an event in Rome commemorating the 75th anniversary of Confapi, the Italian confederation of small and medium-sized private industry, Tajani said pantheistic (the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing, immanent God) environmental policy was not the way to go.
“An environmentalist policy which is the daughter of a pantheistic religion, which is concerned only with the environment, which does not take work into account, is a vision which does not always lead to good results," he said.
"I am convinced that we must fight climate change, but we must take into account whether those objectives are achievable or not."
ANSA
