Row erupts again after new Italian gaffe

One political row with Italy was settled this afternoon – just as another erupted.

A phone call from Rome to Brussels delivered an uneasy truce over Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s notorious “Nazi” jibe.

But the peace move was completely overshadowed by a new Italian slur against the Germans, described by a junior government minister in Rome as “uniform hypernationalistic blonds“.

One huge gaffe in the first week of Italy’s six-month term in the EU presidency was seen this afternoon as unfortunate, but two looked like carelessness.

“This is turning into the Tommy Cooper presidency,” said the leader of Britain’s Labour MEPs Gary Titley.

“It’s a complete shambles. It’s ineptitude gone mad. Berlusconi’s attempt to patch up the first insult this afternoon was hardly impressive, but we were prepared to let it go and get on with running EU business. And now this has happened.”

Mr Berlusconi was making his kiss-and-make-up call to European Parliament president Pat Cox when word spread of a newspaper article tirade against “stuck-up, noisy, outrageous” German tourists.

The author was Stefano Stefani, an Italian under-secretary who might have single-handedly wiped out billions of pounds in German tourist revenue this summer.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has already accepted Mr Berlusconi’s “regrets” over the “Nazi” remark against a German Socialist Euro-MP, immediately threatened to cancel his Italian holiday next week.

Mr Berlusconi came off the phone from talking to Mr Cox to learn that things he thought could not get much worse just had.

The Italian leader had managed not to say sorry to Mr Cox, but did express “regret” for comparing German Socialist MEP Martin Schulz to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

It was no more an apology than Mr Berlsuconi’s similar call to Chancellor Schroeder last week, but EU officials said at least this time the contact was with the European Parliament, in which Mr Berlusconi had hurled his insults during a heated debate.

A European Parliament statement said: “During a telephone conversation with Pat Cox, Silvio Berlusconi expressed his regret for having used in the course of an animated debate certain expressions and comparisons which hurt the sensitivities of members of the European Parliament.

“Mr Berlusconi added that his intentions may have been misunderstood and that in no way had he ever intended to offend.”

The call was little more than a face-saving formula, and Mr Cox, in response, is recorded as having merely “reiterated his wishes for a successful (Italian) presidency.”

Mr Stefano’s newspaper article has dashed those wishes and revived questions about whether Mr Berlusconi and some of his ministers are really fit to run Italy, let alone to run the EU for the rest of this year.