Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

‘Ending in the worst way’: Italian ex-PM Berlusconi condemns Trump over US Capitol attack

Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi said on Friday that Donald Trump's time at the White House had ended in "the worst way".

Published: 8 January 2021 16:10 CET
'Ending in the worst way': Italian ex-PM Berlusconi condemns Trump over US Capitol attack
Silvio Berlusconi's political tactics are often seen as a model for Trump's. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

Berlusconi said “it would be unjust and uncharitable” to deny Trump's “achievements” as US President.

However, Monday's mob attack by his supporters on the US Capitol “overshadows those achievements and will darken the historical memory of this
presidency,” Berlusconi wrote in a letter to Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Berlusconi's family company.

READ ALSO: 

  • 'Once again, I got away with it!': Italy's Berlusconi leaves hospital after Covid treatment
  • Berlusconi's back: Understanding the enduring popularity of Italy's 'immortal' former PM
“Trump's mandate is ending in the worst way,” said Berlusconi, appearing to distance his own politics from Trump's by adding: “a right that attacks the Capitol will never be our right.”
 
“This tragic episode, the American right, which reflects a widespread mood in American society, encouraged by irresponsible propaganda, is certainly not the Republican right that we have always appreciated,” Berlusconi said.
 
The violence at the Capitol, the seat of the US parliament, on Wednesday left a police officer and four others dead.
 
Flags at the US Capitol building fly at half-mast on Friday. Photo: Brendan Smialowski / AFP
 
Berlusconi, 84, is a former real estate and media mogul who reinvented himself as a conservative politician, served three times as prime minister and continues to lead the centre-right Forza Italia party.

He remains a popular public figure in Italy despite being best known in Italy and abroad for sex scandals and a tax fraud conviction.

His political tactics are often seen as a trailblazing model for Trump's.

In November, Berlusconi commented that Trump's “very often too arrogant attitude” had been to blame for his election defeat.

The attack in Washington has also been condemned by Berlusconi's ally Matteo Salvini of the hard-right League party, long an outspoken backer of Trump.

“Violence is never a solution, never. Long live freedom and democracy, always and everywhere,” Salvini tweeted.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte voiced concern about the attack on Wednesday, writing on Twitter that: “Violence is incompatible with the exercise of democratic rights and freedoms.”

 

However, Conte and other members of the current Italian government did not join some other European political leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel in directly criticising Trump and his supporters over the Capitol attack.

READ ALSO: 'We can't wait to work side by side': Italian PM sends congratulations to Joe Biden

“This tragic episode, the American right, which reflects a widespread mood in American society, encouraged by irresponsible propaganda, is certainly not the Republican right that we have always appreciated,” Berlusconi said.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

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

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

SHOW COMMENTS