Berlusconi - what a card!

On his second day serv­ing as Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coun­cil, Silvio Berlus­coni has caused some­thing of a ker­fuf­fle. In response to protest­ing Green Party mem­bers, and wide­spread jeer­ing at his poker-​faced claim that the Ital­ian media are his sternest crit­ics, Berlus­coni said this to a German MEP:

I know in Italy there is a pro­ducer work­ing on a film on Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps. I would like to sug­gest you for the role of com­man­dant. You’d be perfect!

Is there any­thing more offen­sive to a German than that? Unbe­liev­able. It looks like EC meet­ings might be required view­ing from now on.

Another Berlus­coni gem, from Chan­nel 4’s quote file:

One cit­i­zen is equal to another, but per­haps this one is slightly more equal than the rest, given that 50 per cent of Ital­ians have given him the respon­si­bil­ity of gov­ern­ing the coun­try.

June 19th 2003, after Ital­ian leg­is­la­tors voted to pass an immu­nity law that will save Berlus­coni from pros­e­cu­tion for as long as he is prime minister

Okay, so he’s a one man judge-​bribing, pro­pa­gan­dis­ing fraud machine who has devoted his life to leech­ing the life-​blood of the Ital­ian people, but what chutzpah!

Posted at 7pm on 02/07/03 by Jack Mottram to the politics category.
Permalink · Add to del.icio.us