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Covid-19: Italian ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi tests positive after Sardinia trip

Former long-time Italian Prime Minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi has reportedly tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Published: 2 September 2020 19:00 CEST
Updated: 3 September 2020 08:50 CEST

Covid-19: Italian ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi tests positive after Sardinia trip

Silvio Berlusconi pictured in 2019. Photo: AFP

On Wednesday his centre-right Forza italia party said that Berlusconi, who will turn 84 at the end of September, had two tests come back positive, but “is continuing to work from his home in Arcore” near Milan, “where he will be spending the planned quarantine period”.

Berlusconi, the scandal-hit politician who once owned AC Milan, stressed that he would continue his political activities.

READ ALSO: Is Italy really heading for a coronavirus second wave?

“I will be present in the electoral campaign with interviews on televisions and in newspapers,” he said during a party video conference.

However he recognised “the limitations imposed on my activities by testing positive for the coronavirus… but I will continue the battle.”

Regional elections are due to take place in two weeks as well as a referendum on reducing the number of Italian parliamentarians.

“He is asymptomatic,” said his doctor, Alberto Zangrillo, according to the daily La Repubblica.

Zangrilio himself was embroiled in controversy in June after claiming that the virus “no longer exists”.

Berlusconi was first tested on August 25 after returning from a holiday in Sardinia where he owns a luxury property.

READ ALSO: This is where people in Italy are becoming infected with coronavirus

The result was negative, but he was tested again after some people he met on the Italian island were found to be positive.

These included businessman Flavio Briatore, former managing director of the Benetton Formula One racing team, who was briefly hospitalised in Milan.

Briatore's “Le Billionnaire” nightclub in Sardinia was closed down in August after employees tested positive for the coronavirus.

Berlusconi left for France in late February, at a time when Italy was becoming the epicentre of Covid-19 in Europe.

Forza Italia number two Antonio Tajani said at the time that doctors had warned the political veteran to actively avoid becoming infected.

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‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

They highlighted among their concerns the continued criminalisation of defamation – a law Meloni herself has used against a high-profile journalist – and the proposed takeover of a major news agency by a right-wing MP.

The two-day mission, led by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), was planned for the autumn but brought forward due to “worrying developments”, Andreas Lamm of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told a press conference.

The ECPMF’s monitoring project, which records incidents affecting media freedom such as legal action, editorial interference and physical attacks, recorded a spike in Italy’s numbers from 46 in 2022 to 80 in 2023.

There have been 49 so far this year.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, took office as head of a hard-right coalition government in October 2022.

A key concern of the NGOs is the increased political influence over the RAI public broadcaster, which triggered a strike by its journalists this month.

READ ALSO: Italy’s press freedom ranking drops amid fears of government ‘censorship’

“We know RAI was always politicised…but now we are at another level,” said Renate Schroeder, director of the Brussels-based EFJ.

The NGO representatives – who will write up a formal report in the coming weeks – recommended the appointment of fully independent directors to RAI, among other measures.

They also raised concerns about the failure of repeated Italian governments to decriminalise defamation, despite calls for reform by the country’s Constitutional Court.

Meloni herself successfully sued journalist Roberto Saviano last year for criticising her attitude to migrants.

“In a European democracy a prime minister does not respond to criticism by legally intimidating writers like Saviano,” said David Diaz-Jogeix of London-based Article 19.

He said that a proposed reform being debated in parliament, which would replace imprisonment with fines of up to 50,000 euros, “does not meet the bare minimum of international and European standards of freedom of expression”.

The experts also warned about the mooted takeover of the AGI news agency by a group owned by a member of parliament with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party – a proposal that also triggered journalist strikes.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

Beatrice Chioccioli of the International Press Institute said it posed a “significant risk for the editorial independence” of the agency.

The so-called Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium expressed disappointment that no member of Meloni’s coalition responded to requests to meet with them.

They said that, as things stand, Italy is likely to be in breach of a new EU media freedom law, introduced partly because of fears of deteriorating standards in countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Schroeder said next month’s European Parliament elections could be a “turning point”, warning that an increase in power of the far-right across the bloc “will have an influence also on media freedom”.

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