ITALY: Berlusconi, Europe and America

Silvio Berlusconi is an embarrassment to Italy and now to Europe, so he stresses US partnership (Reuters, 7/1) He took over the EU presidency and said the EU should complement the US, not compete with it. He also told French radio the EU needed a strong military force to boost its influence. "Europe must be complementary to the US," Berlusconi said on France's Europe 1 radio. "I think the West must be united. There can't be competition between us and America," Berlusconi said, adding that rivalry was fine in business and economics, but not in politics. Berlusconi was among the few European allies of US President George Bush during the invasion of Iraq. French President Jacques Chirac, who opposed the Iraq war, has sought to promote a "multipolar" view of the world in which the US is not the sole dominant power - a model that Bush administration officials view with distaste. To be a more credible power on the world stage, the EU bloc needed to develop a strong military force, Berlusconi said. "If we don't have a military force, we don't have diplomatic or political power," he said. Responding to questions over his legal position in Italy, where he faces charges of bribing judges, Berlusconi said Italian "politicized" judges were a "cancer" that needed to be treated. "We need to reform the judiciary to assure the public that they have judges who are not judges of the (political) left, who are impartial judges," he said. Berlusconi's administration has rammed through last-minute legislation granting him immunity from prosecution while in office. A number of corruption investigations against Berlusconi have been dropped due to the statute of limitations, or because his government managed to repeal the laws he had violated. Many political groups in the European Parliament have expressed concern about the Italian government, pointing to the immunity law, the concentration of media power in Berlusconi's hands, and anti-immigrant statements by leading government officials. RH: What are these statements? Many Europeans are understandably hostile to immigration.

Ronald Hilton - 7/7/03