'Soft' Berlusconi angers EU partners

Relations between Italy and its EU partners have soured over Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s meeting last week in Rome with Russian President Vladimir Putin, officials said today.

One diplomat said “an overwhelming majority” of the 15 EU nations and the 10 countries joining the union in May are angry Berlusconi that was “soft” on human rights violations in Russia.

The issue will be raised at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, “a truly rare and unprecedented procedure,” said the diplomat.

Moscow’s crackdown on rebels in Chechnya and the arrest of an oil tycoon who funded Putin opponents were not mentioned in a post EU-Russia summit statement.

But at a press conference later Berlusconi, whose country now holds the EU presidency, vigorously defended Putin.

“I know President Putin well enough to guarantee that he is very clear about the separation between the judicial power and the executive power,” he said in answer to a question – to Putin – about the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, founder of the Yukos oil company.

Berlusconi’s performance has also been criticised by the European Commission.

Russia always bars any reference to human rights abuses in Chechnya from EU-Russia communiques. For that reason, on at least one occasion an EU-Russia summit ended without a communique.

Officials said most EU governments feel if Berlusconi could not get Chechnya into a summit statement, he should not have defended Putin’s rights record afterward.

“The presidency cannot speak in name of the EU if the overwhelming majority of EU nations has another opinion,” said the diplomat.