Finns in a flap about Berlusconi ‘playboy’ remark

FINLAND yesterday summoned the Italian ambassador to protest about comments made by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi about Finnish President Tarja Halonen.

Mr Berlusconi reportedly joked on Tuesday that he had to use “all my playboy skills” to convince her that the European Union food agency should be assigned to Italy, not Finland.

The Finnish Foreign Ministry said it summoned Italian Ambassador Ugo De Mohr yesterday “to express astonishment at statements made by the Italian prime minister.”

Mr Berlusconi’s remarks also raised criticism in his home country, where opposition MP Antonio Di Pietro called the remarks “inappropriate,” according to the ANSA news agency.

“Yet another gaffe by Berlusconi,” Mr Di Pietro was quoted as saying.

Before the EU food agency was assigned to Parma, Italy, in December 2003, Mr Berlusconi was famously quoted as insisting the agency should not go to Helsinki, because “the Finns don’t even know what prosciutto is.”

The premier made his remarks about Ms Halonen at the inauguration of the European Food Safety Agency in Parma, northern Italy.

“When you seek a result, it’s necessary to use all available weapons and therefore I brushed up all my playboy skills, now from the distant past, and I used a series of tender pleas to the president,” ANSA quoted Mr Berlusconi as saying.

Paolo Bonaiuti, Mr Berlusconi’s spokesperson, sought to play down the controversy, saying the premier was being “cute” and that the remarks were meant as a nice gesture during a day of celebration, ANSA reported. “It certainly can’t be the peg for a diplomatic case,” he said.