Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Newsweek: Berlusconi? Una comica perenne

Bad, Bad Boy
Silvio Berlusconi has long been a nuisance. Many in Europe now see him as a
menace
By Michael Meyer and Barbie Nadeau
NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL
Jan. 21 issue - Open mouth, insert foot. That has long seemed Silvio
Berlusconi's patented political style. The Italian prime minister has been
pratfalling his way across the world's stage ever since he took office last
May in one of the most controversial and scandal-pocked elections Europe has
ever seen. His fellow European leaders have done their best to ignore him,
raising skeptical eyebrows at his more egregious antics but otherwise
politely sidelining him. It's as though he were the unsavory closet cousin
at a grand dinner-to be seen, regrettably, but not heard.
     POOR SILVIO. HE MAY come to miss those days. Abruptly, in less than a
week, the repressed forbearance of old has flashed into angry criticism
across continental Europe. Ministers have melted down in puddles of
diplo-speak, labeling him and his government "irresponsible," "adolescent,"
"disappointing." Once rather a joke, Berlusconi has morphed into something
darker-an obstructionist troublemaker, a sort of Eurocratic Darth Vader, a
potential Disrupter of Grand European Plans. The worries run so deep that
Europe's elder statesman, former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing,
flew specially to Rome last week to see him. The Spanish foreign minister
pounded on his door, bearing urgent missives from President Jose Maria
Aznar. The Italian Parliament meets this week to discuss his policies, while
political pundits and signori in the street speculate about his untimely
political end. "The government will fall," predicts a seller of newspapers
in Rome. "If he makes a mistake now, it's all over."
 Once rather a joke, Berlusconi has morphed into something darker-an
obstructionist troublemaker, a sort of Eurocratic Darth Vader, a potential
Disrupter of Grand European Plans.
          Was it something he said? Well, yes. It all began last week,
fittingly, with the introduction of Europe's newfangled currency. Something
to celebrate? Not in Italy, apparently. Save Euro-phoria for "primates
waving banners, faith healers, shamans, miracle workers and bankers,"
grumbled Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti, Berlusconi's political
amanuensis. His offhanded dismissal of the latest and perhaps greatest step
toward Europe's political and economic integration was echoed by others in
Berlusconi's government-to deep dismay elsewhere. Hitherto, Italy had long
been counted upon as a pillar of what Europhiles call "ever closer union."
Did the attitudes of Berlusconi's lieutenants reflect a change of policy?
From Paris to Brussels, ministries furiously demanded explanations.
        Rather than offer reassurance, Berlusconi played the gadfly. When
his stalwartly pro-Europe foreign minister, Renato Ruggiero, resigned in
protest, he happily appointed himself in Ruggiero's place. Techies call it
multitasking: a prime minister and foreign minister, all in one. Arriving to
assume his responsibilities at the Foreign Ministry, Berlusconi was full of
cocksure bluster: "I'm the right man in the right job."
        Il Cavaliere, as Italians call him, is hardly new to such tempest.
Indeed, he seems drawn to it. His tenure has been marked not just by whiffs
of corruption. (Berlusconi has been embroiled in 10 different criminal cases
ranging from bribery to tax evasion over the past five years.) Somehow, he
manages to muff most important occasions of state. His first public foray as
PM came at the G8 summit in Genoa. Three days of violent riots culminated in
the shooting death of a young protester by security forces instructed to
maintain public order at all costs. Berlusconi's response: to applaud the
police for their tact and restraint. Then came September 11. As other allied
ministers worked to assure a suspicious Arab world that the war in
Afghanistan was not a crusade against Islam, Berlusconi spoke out. "We
should be confident in the superiority of our civilization," he declared in
a speech in Germany, prompting gasps from the West-and shaking fists
elsewhere. "He doesn't really know much about the ways of the world,"
explained a columnist and noted author, Beppe Severgnini. "He knows about
Italian business and politics and back rooms."
        Small wonder he's not much welcomed in grander places. He has tried
to crash European mini-summits in France and Britain, including a dinner
with Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street-to which he showed up not only
uninvited but late. In December he nixed a deal to participate in plans to
build a European military transport plane. (A "hesitation," French
proponents of the project gamely describe it, and not a "determinative
obstacle.") More recently he resisted Europe's efforts to craft a common
European arrest warrant, caving only reluctantly and under strenuous
pressure. And at last month's summit in Laeken, where the 15 members of the
European Union agreed to host a constitutional convention, beginning March
1, to hammer out a common vision of Europe's future, Berlusconi ended up in
a petty row with the Finns over where to locate a new European food-safety
administration. Helsinki or Parma? "They don't even know what prosciutto is
up there," he groused.
        Minor flaps, perhaps. But for those bent on building a bigger, more
integrated Europe, they are troubling signs. Now come Berlusconi's
ministers, dissing the newborn euro-pointedly without rebuke from the prime
minister. If anything, he appears to have given them license to lash out at
some of the most sacred Europeanist ideals. Almost casually, Finance
Minister Tremonti told reporters last week that Italy has ditched the once
honored vision of a single European superstate. A "romantic idea," he
scoffed, best replaced by a "union of nation-states." Berlusconi's
controversial coalition partner, Umberto Bossi, was equally quick to vent
his known anti-Europe sentiments, while Rocco Buttiglione, Italy's European
Affairs minister, went so far as to suggest that it was perhaps time to
rethink Europe's leadership and direction. "Italy should be more assertive,"
he told the BBC. "There is space for more than two coleaders." No one missed
that swipe at France and Germany, whose lead Italy has tamely followed for
so long.
        The question is, what now? Will Berlusconi's Italy continue to
follow the dream of a federal Europe, sketched out over decades in Paris and
Berlin? Or will it change course, perhaps to ally more closely with the
so-called Euro-skeptics, namely Britain, which envisage a Europe of nations,
integrated more economically than politically? Europe's leaders rightly
sense a potentially profound shift, rattling many well-laid plans. Hence the
spectacle of Giscard d'Estaing, who will head Europe's upcoming
constitutional convention, rushing to Berlusconi's offices. "That's why I am
in Rome," he said at the prime minister's doorstep. "To meet him and get his
position on Europe." As for the man himself, Berlusconi brushed aside doubts
of his commitment to Europe as "ridiculous." In fact, he added, unable to
restrain himself, "Italy has a passion for Europe. A passion that is
superior to everyone else."
        Oops. There's that foot again.
       © 2002 Newsweek, Inc.

Jan. 21 issue - Open mouth, insert foot. That has long seemed Silvio
CUT
You smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth 
You said that irony was the shackles of youth
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh
See yaah :) patanian
Waku waku, Leftorium

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:3c486bc2...@news.tin.it...

questa dove l'ho già sentita?


What's the frequency Ciccionz... Rem
Oh my kiss breath turpentine
Waku waku, Leftorium

Many in Europe now see him as a menace
Oh yes, of course, many many comrades.
Their close draws nearer.