In the news . . . really

[Tisha]

Now I remind everyone . . . these are supposedly adults.


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Berlusconi Nazi Row Rocks Italian Government
Thu July 3, 2003 12:12 PM ET


By Crispian Balmer
ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Nazi slur against a German lawmaker has heightened already fraught tensions within Italy's center-right coalition and infuriated his Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini.

Coming on the back of weeks of internal government feuding, the uproar caused by Berlusconi's comments sent cabinet doves scurrying for cover as hard-liners rushed out to join their leader on the diplomatic barricades.

For Fini, one of the most suave operators in Italian politics, the rumpus risked opening old wounds about his party, the National Alliance, which traces its roots back to Benito Mussolini's Fascist movement.

Fini was in the European Parliament for Wednesday's stormy debate and twitched with ill-concealed irritation as Berlusconi rounded on a German deputy and told him that he would be perfect as a concentration camp guard in a film.

The bespectacled Fini later told Berlusconi to apologize.

"No accusation, not even the most partisan, can justify the epithet Nazi commander for a political adversary," said Fini, who has struggled for years to shift his party clear of Mussolini's shadow and make it a respectable conservative force.

Predictably, the shadow reappeared before the day was over.

"The prime minister of a country that has been governed by Mussolini cannot make ironical comments about the victims of fascism," German Social Democratic deputy Martin Schulz, the butt of Berlusconi's Nazi jibe, told reporters.

UNCOMFORTABLE ALLIES

The leader of another Italian coalition party, the Democratic Union of the Center (UDC), joined Fini in distancing himself from Berlusconi's remarks. "I do not share them and I struggle to understand them," said Marco Follini.

The row exploded just as Berlusconi was painstakingly trying to restore order to his coalition following a poor showing in local elections last month, and review policy-making.

Fini and the UDC want Berlusconi to restrain their erstwhile government ally, the Northern League party, which constantly stirs Italy's troubled political waters with hard-hitting comments on immigration control.

Northern League politicians were among the first to leap to Berlusconi's defense on Wednesday, exacerbating the strains at the heart of the two-year old administration.

"This (government) review has now got much more difficult," European Affairs Minister Rocco Buttiglione, a senior UDC leader, was quoted as saying on Thursday by La Stampa newspaper.

Close Berlusconi friends expressed bitterness at the way the National Alliance and UDC had walked away from Berlusconi.

Giuliano Ferrara, editor the Il Foglio newspaper and a minister in Berlusconi's first government in 1994, said the prime minister had been outrageously provoked by Schulz.

"Berlusconi was more honorable than the false and hypocritical indignation of his allies," he told Reuters.

As recently as last week, political sources said Fini was considering standing down as deputy prime minister to protest about the lack of transparency in internal government dealings.

The Nazi row will only add to his pent-up frustrations.