Italy and Portugal are reaffirming their intentions to honor the European regulated market online poker liquidity sharing pact they agreed to last summer.

Last July, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain inked a cross-border agreement to allow licensed operators in their respective regulated online gambling markets to share poker liquidity. Last week, The Stars Group’s PokerStars brand’s French- and Spanish-licensed sites launched the first practical realization of this pact.

However, comments by some Italian politicians and domestic gaming operators – the former concerned about money laundering, the latter about sites like PokerStars reaping all the benefits – led to speculation that Italy was having second thoughts about honoring its liquidity commitments.

Perish the thought, according to Pier Paolo Baretta, Italy’s Undersecretary of the Ministry of Economy and Finance with responsibility for gaming issues. Baretta told Italian gaming news outlet GiocoNews that “the agreement will be respected.”