DW-World.de
Deutsche Welle

The leaders of Germany and Italy have expressed solidarity on the international financial crisis. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the two countries were "on the same wave length," following a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Trieste, in northern Italy. The two sides agreed that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development should free up credit for the auto-industry. They also agreed on a joint approach to climate change within the EU. Earlier, German and Italian foreign ministers laid a wreath for victims of a World War Two death camp near Trieste. Risiera da San Sabba, a former rice mill complex, was used by Nazi military units to murder between 3,000 and 5,000 people, mostly political prisoners. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the atrocities represented what he "called the betrayal of civilisation".