international

Berlusconi loses two teeth and much blood after metal object is thrown at his face

Today is 'No Berlusconi Day'

Opponents of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will gather in Rome today as part of 'No Berlusconi Day', a day of protests almost entirely organised by bloggers, twitterers and Facebook users.

Italy's controversial leader is facing problems on many fronts:

• The latest suggest that he has a history of links to the Sicilian Mafia, and that his former party, Forza Italia, was part-funded by the Mafia. He has dismissed the claims as "ridiculous, unfounded and infamous”.
• Hi wife, Veronica Lario, is demanding a divorce settlement of £39 million a year.
• Patrizia D’Addario (website), an escort, has published a book that in some detail recounts her alleged sexual experiences with Mr Berlusconi.
• A ruling by Italy's constitutional court means that he will go to trial for allegedly having bribed UK lawyer, David Mills (estranged husband of Labour MP, Tessa Jowell). Mr Berlusconi had passed a law to give him immunity from prosecution but the court has overturned that law.
• The Economist reports that Mr Berlusconi's business empire is also under threat from the courts: "A Milan court asked Fininvest, the company at the heart of Mr Berlusconi’s business empire, for a €750m ($1.1 billion) bank guarantee. This was to show it could pay damages awarded to CIR, the holding company of Mr Berlusconi’s arch-rival, Carlo De Benedetti, in a case after the battle in the 1990s over the Mondadori publishing house. Fininvest’s lawyer was found to have bribed a judge to favour its bid. Mr Berlusconi’s company is appealing against the award, but if it fails, it may have to sell assets."

Ultimately the courts will probably move too slowly to oust Berlusconi but there are now signs of unhappiness within his right-wing coaltion. Gianfranco Fini, his junior partner in the 'Party of Liberty', was recorded saying that Berlusconi "confuses leadership with absolute monarchy". He continued that Mr Berlsconi was unable to distinguish between "popular consent, which he obviously has and which gives him a mandate to govern, and a sort of immunity from any other authority [such as] the magistracy, the audit court, the [top appeals court], the head of state or parliament".

Despite all of this Berlusconi remains popular. 49% of Italians approve of him in latest polls.  But Fini is more popular.  He has ratings of 60%.  The Party of Liberty centre right coalition has an overall 48% to 42% opinion poll advantage over the centre left coalition.

Silvio Berlusconi backs Blair for European President

The embattled Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has taken the time to declare his support for Tony Blair becoming European President through a letter published on the front page of a small circulation newspaper in Milan, Il Foglio (of which, according to The Times, his estranged wife is the largest stakeholder and one of his former government spokesmen the editor).

It reads:

“Tony Blair has got everything it needs to become the first president of the European Council... He has everything it needs to be designated to that role, as soon as it will be judicially and politically possible... In agreement with many other heads of government, and heads of state, and in co-ordination with the powers of the European Parliament, my Government and I will work to ensure we do not lose a great political legacy, made with courage, equilibrium and prudence without uncertainty.”

That translated version is from The Times; Il Foglio's original in Italian is here.

The role of European Council President will not of course exist until such a time as the Lisbon Treaty is passed into law in the Czech Republic...

Jonathan Isaby

The Right's most embarrassing representative on the world stage?

He is arrogant. He calls himself "Superman" and recently boasted: "I am by far the best prime minister Italy has had in its 150-year history."

He is intolerant. He is taking legal action against a number of newspapers who have criticised him and recently took a commercial interest in the last TV station that had been critical of him.

He denies having paid for sex, protesting that "the joy is in the conquest" but the Italian press are full of stories of sexual infidelity, relationships with very young women and with escorts.

Despite all this, his popularity - although down - largely endures and he has overcome critics in his own party.

In the latest edition of Standpoint magazine, Mara Delius wonders if the Vatican can bring Italy's PM down to earth:

"Berlusconi's aides know that support from Catholic voters is crucial to their government — but they also know that Berlusconi hardly faces a viable alternative, let alone strong political opposition. He may be an old man in a hurry, but he still has the magic touch it needs to be the master of his house of cards. His virility may only be powered by verbal Viagra, but currently the appeal he creates with it is strong enough to divert attention from the political scandals which in any other Western country would put him on trial.  The one thing that Berlusconi might not reckon with is that the strongest opposition to his kind of politics could be the source of moral authority that he has always taken for granted: the Catholic Church. At a time when young Italians are fleeing the country in search of better education and job prospects, there is a yearning for someone to say: "Basta!" ("Enough!") Doesn't this call for the Church to recall its responsibility to stand in our way, to beseech us not to look away while continuing as we were?"

Merkel and Berlusconi enjoy strong domestic support

Some key numbers from the latest ComRes survey of European opinion:

• French Right set to increase number of MEPs: "While confidence in Sarkozy among the French public is low, the party appears set to outpace the Socialist Party in June. In 2004, then President Chirac’s UMP polled a humiliating 17% of the vot e with the Socialists polling 12% ahead of them at 29%". Overall, however, 37% of French voters are satisfied with President Sarkozy's performance but 62% are dissatisfied.
• Merkel on course to break free of grand coalition: "Angela Merkel’s coaliti on “government in waiting” which brings together the Christian Democrats/Christian Social Union and Free Democ ratic Party continues to be in robust form. Their combined 48% vote share should be enough to guarantee Merkel the seats required to secure another four years in office without the need for an uncomfortable
  ‘grand coalition’."
• Hungary's Socialist government 31% behind Civic Union rival: Election may be held earlier than next year.
• 40% of the people of troubled Iceland would like to join the EU, 45% would not.
• 46% of Irish set to vote yes in  second Lisbon vote, 27% no.
• 51% of Swedes oppose joining the Euro, 45% support doing so.
• Berlusconi's Right-of-centre coalition has 22% lead over Italy's Left. Berlusconi recently brought Italy's main centre right parties together. 
• Spain's centre left government has a 2% lead over the centre right opposition.

Click Download Pollwatch Euro Apr09pdf for a PDF of the full ComRes briefing.

Click here for last month's briefing.

If you would like to subscribe to ComRes' European Opinion Briefing please email andrew@comres.eu.com.

Berlusconi's new People of Freedom party aims to dominate Italian politics

Yesterday's Times reported Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ambition to create a party of the Right for Italy that is as powerful and stable as Germany's CDU or Britain's Conservative Party.

Italy's political party system has long been fragmented and Italy's Left is more fragmented today than for many years.  But in a weekend of celebrations - costing nearly £3m - Berlusconi's Forza Italia party will merge with Gianfranco Fini's Alleanza Nazionale.  The new party will be called the Popolo della Liberta (PDL).  That's People of Freedom Party in English.

The Times highlights Mr Fini's efforts to distance his Alliance from his past:

"The Alleanza Nazionale evolved in 1994 from the MSI, or Italian Social Movement, the descendant of the outlawed Fascist party. It has spent much time and effort distancing itself from its unsavoury past: Mr Fini, a former neo-Fascist youth leader, has tried to establish a rapport with Italy's Jewish community and repudiated some of his own statements.  Mr Fini has made repeated trips to Israel, condemning Mussolini's 1938 anti-Semitic race laws and being photographed in a skull cap at the Holocaust Museum and the Wailing Wall. He has increasingly moved to the centre, attacking discrimination against immigrants and reaching out to Muslims as well as Jews."

Fini is currently a supporter of Berlusconi but, as The Economist has noted, has warned against "Caesarism" from Italy's increasingly powerful PM.

The PDL is expected to become the largest member of the EPP following June's elections to the European Parliament.

Italy's right-wing Northern League has chosen not to join the PDL.

Eastern Europe wins concessions from Sarkozy on coal-fired power stations

French President Nicolas Sarkozy - currently President of the EU - failed to win agreement from Central and Eastern European nations for support for EU-wide action on climate change although certain concessions have brought the possibility of agreement closer.

"The EU," reports AFP, "has set a triple "20" objective for 2020: slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% compared to 1990, increasing renewable energy's share of the market to 20%, and improving energy efficiency by 20%."

Most opposition to the pact is coming from Poland and Italy.  Poland is 94% dependent on coal-fired energy and is now confident of extended exemptions from the EU pact.

Italy's Silvio Berlusconi is the other main barrier to action.  His environment minister issued the following statement earlier this week:

"We think the package is a mistake. As it stands, it penalises our industry, increases costs for citizens, threatens jobs and makes Italy poorer." 

Disagreement within Europe coincides with growing restlessness in other parts of the world.  "There is no chance whatsoever that any developing country will agree to that proposal," Marthinus Van Schalkwyk, South Africa's environment minister, said in an interview in London. "None of the developing countries -- all of us have said that up front -- are willing to commit to specific targets."  The Sydney Morning Herald also reports that Kevin Rudd's government, once a leading enthusiast for action on climate change, is "back-pedalling".

The frontbenches of Britain's political parties support the EU climate pact but a number of Conservative Party backbenchers are increasingly vociferous in raising their concerns.

European Right divides over Brussels' climate change plan

In recent days Italy and Poland had both signalled unhappiness that the EU was pressing ahead with ambitious climate change targets at a time of grave economic difficulty.

Silvio Berlusconi has said "Our businesses are in absolutely no position at the moment to absorb the costs of the regulations that have been proposed" while Poland's PM Donald Tusk said: “We don’t say to the French that they have to close down their nuclear power industry and build windmills, and nobody can tell us the equivalent.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned against retreat, however, and EU president, José Manuel Barroso came to his support: "We're not going to let up in the battle against climate change and there's no question of picking between the financial crisis and climate change. The two go together."

The Guardian reports that "Eastern European countries, ex-communist states, want the richer nations in western Europe to carry more of the cost of cutting emissions and protection for their industries which are heavily dependent on fossil fuels, notably coal. Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia wanted at one point to scrap the December deadline."

The position of the British Tories is that there is no tension between climate change action and economic interests.  Greg Clark MP set out his party's position in the House of Commons yesterday:

"Conservative Members agree that the choice between ambitious and progressive action on carbon reduction and a successful, powerful economy is, in fact, not a choice at all—they are one and the same. Without decisive action, there is a risk that climate change will leach away huge resources from this country and every other nation on earth. The economic events of recent days have proved that catastrophic risk must be acted on rather than wished away."

But do EU announcements on climate change have any real currency?  Many observers are sceptical of any targets announced by EU governments.  The Daily Telegraph recorded Labour's own lamentable record in a leading article today:

"There is a lot of ministerial hot air about these targets; new ones are announced long before it is apparent whether existing ones are realistic or achievable. In 1997, the Government said it was going to "reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010". By 2003 this had become an aspiration to "move towards a 20 per cent reduction…" By 2005, it was saying that "emissions of all greenhouse gases would be around 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010". In 2006 a target was set for "all new homes to be zero carbon within a decade" but in the first month of 2008, just three zero carbon homes were built. The Government then pledged to reduce carbon dioxide by 60 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050, which Mr Miliband has now said should rise to 80 per cent in line with a recommendation delivered just last week by the Government-appointed Climate Change Committee. When the 60 per cent target was first recommended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, it implicitly included emissions from aviation. But Mr Miliband now says aviation and shipping will be excluded, though specific proposals for achieving this tougher target have still to be published."

Berlusconi enjoys high ratings but remains hugely controversial

Jacopo Barigazzi writes a very positive account of the Italian PM's first 100 days back in office for the latest edition of Newsweek:

"In his first 100 days in office, Silvio Berlusconi may have done the impossible: to a degree unprecedented in modern Italian history, he asserted control over this seemingly ungovernable nation. The opposition parties are mired in squabbling, and Berlusconi, now prime minister for the third time since 1994, has an approval rating of 55 percent—higher than Britain's Gordon Brown, France's Nicolas Sarkozy or Spain's José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero."

At the heart of Mr Barigazzi's positive piece is an account of the successful attempts by the Berlusconi administration to end the crisis in Naples where rubbish has been piling up in the streets for a number of months.

But if Barigazzi focuses on Berlusconi's popularity, the Italian leader also remains very controversial:

• He has put Italian troops on to the streets in order to control crime and as part of a crackdown on unpopular Gypsy communities.  The Guardian has noted the crackdown and the belief that 50,000 Romanian Gypsies are partly responsible for increased crime.  The move has united left and right in concern.  The Guardian's Seumas Milne has written of "the shame of Europe" and EU Referendum's Richard North.  Richard North recently blogged:  "Comparisons are now being made between this government's action and the census of Jews carried out by Benito Mussolin in 1938, the beginning of a process that put many of them in concentration camps. The Italian government, of course, denies any such connection, but its actions display a rooted determination to clear out what are clearly considered unwelcome "guests"."
• His government was virtually alone in siding with Russia in its recent conflict with Georgia.
• And, as noted by Barigazzi, one of his first acts in office was the passage of a bill that granted him and other top ministers immunity from prosecution so long as they are in office.