Re: Berlusconi is a clown but a very rich one, and so I don't consider him harmless.
Prodi attacks Berlusconi for running 'ceremonial' foreign policy
By Tony Barber and George Parker in Brussels
Published: October 25 2004
Romano Prodi, the outgoing European Commission president, has criticised Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister and his political arch-rival, for running a "ceremonial" foreign policy in which superficiality has replaced substance and Italy has lost influence in Europe.
In an interview with the Financial Times at the weekend, Mr Prodi said: "I find Italian policy more and more on the periphery . . . I've not seen any case in which Italy was leading, either with France or Germany or the UK. In the old times, even with terrible merry-go-round governments [in Italy], you would see something."
He continued: "It's been a personal choice of Mr Berlusconi, not a choice of the Italian foreign ministry . . . There's just not been any long-term thinking. A picture has been more important. Everything has been ceremonial."
Mr Prodi was speaking one week before he completes his five-year term in Brussels and two weeks before he formally launches his return to domestic politics as leader of Italy's centre-left opposition. His aim is to defeat Mr Berlusconi's centre-right government in the next national elections, due by May 2006.
Under Mr Berlusconi, Italy has emphasised ties with the US and Russia, and the premier has tried to forge close friendships with Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin.
Mr Prodi said Mr Berlusconi, a billionaire media magnate, had displayed the "businessman's mentality that he has been dealing with the most powerful men in the world - if it's Bush, it's Bush, if it's Putin, it's Putin. If you want to have flashy image politics, you always embrace the most powerful men in the world."
Commenting on Mr Berlusconi's pro-US policies, which have involved sending a 3,000-strong Italian military and police contingent to Iraq, Mr Prodi said: "I see no field in which there has been any gain - not economic, not political."
Mr Prodi, a critic of the Iraq war, stressed that he supported a strong US-European alliance and made clear that, if elected prime minister, he would try to prevent the Iraq issue from damaging US-Italian relations.
"I've never had any clash with the Americans, never in my life - except over Iraq," he said. "Even if the long-term interest is to have a strong Atlantic alliance, you must speak up if you don't share a choice [as over Iraq]."
Mr Prodi, Italy's prime minister from April 1996 to October 1998, is already hard at work trying to unite the disparate forces of the Italian opposition, which range from the Margherita party on the moderate centre-left to the hardline Communist Refoundation party, under his leadership.
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