Bill's Comment Page

"You'd make a good concentration camp guard"

This is how Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, responded to perfectly valid comment by a German MEP, a member of a Party banned in Germany during the Nazi era.

Mr Berlusconi has taken over as President of the Council of Ministers of the EU from 1st July for the coming six months and was making his inaugural speech to the European Parliament in this role.

Mr Berlusconi's government in Italy very recently passed legislation granting immunity from prosecution to Heads of Government (i.e. Mr Berlusconi) whilst in office, necessary to prevent him from being prosecuted on various alleged crimes including corruption and false accounting.

The German MEP, whilst a placard was raised in the Parliament reading "No Godfather for Europe", wondered aloud whether Mr Berlusconi is a suitable person to be President of the Council of Ministers. I wonder about this, too.

Within hours of Mr Berlusconi's outrageous remarks, the Italian Ambassador in Berlin was called in to the Chancellor's office, rather than to the Foreign Minister's, so that Mr Schroder could lodge a formal protest and demand a full public apology from Mr Berlusconi. There is talk this evening (on the BBC 10pm television news) that if such an apology is not forthcoming by noon tomorrow then the European Parliament may cut ties with the Council of Ministers.

Tense times ahead. I'll be curous to know how the European Parliament reacts if the current French President, the 'alleged crook' Jacques Chirac, is still President of France when it is time for the French to do their next six month 'stint' as President. We're supposed to respect these people - but in the case of these two 'gentlemen' this is extremely difficult (for me at least).