Italian candidates back EU links

Polling stations for Italy's general election open on Sunday

By Robin Oakley, CNN European Political Editor

ROME, Italy -- Italy’s election campaign reached its crescendo with both main coalition leaders pledging allegiance to the European Union.

The election battle has been as much about the personal qualities of Silvio Berlusconi, billionaire leader of the Centre Right ‘House of Liberty’ grouping, and Francesco Rutelli, head of the Centre Left ‘Olive Tree’ coalition, as it has about their policy positions.

With Italians getting ready to elect their 59th government in 56 years, opinion polls say former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stands a good chance of reclaiming his old job.

The closing stages of the campaign ahead of Sunday's poll was marked by a surprise intervention from former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

She intervened by saying that she was impressed by Berlusconi and that he had been the victim of an “exercise in character assassination”.

It was clearly designed as a counter to the attacks on Berlusconi from sections of the European media -- led by the Economist magazine -- which had queried his suitability for the post of Prime Minister.

Rutelli has warned that if Berlusconi is elected Italy could face isolation in the EU, a sentiment echoed by Belgium’s Foreign Minister Louis Michel.

Berlusconi’s ally Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League, has talked scathingly of the EU as the “Soviet Union of the West.”

Rutelli, meanwhile, has spoken warmly of plans mooted by Gerhard Schroeder, the German Chancellor, for a beefed up European Commission and Parliament and for greater EU integration.

But Berlusconi himself, in a final day interview with the Associated Press, said that under his leadership Italy’s foreign policy would not change and that it would continue to be an enthusiastic member of the EU.

He was enthusiastic too about the integration of Europe’s military forces to play a greater peacekeeping role, not a point which would have won the blessing of Lady Thatcher.

Berlusconi was Prime Minister for seven months back in 1994, but his coalition fell apart that time with the defection of the unpredictable Bossi.

On that occasion it had been put together in two months. This time, says Berlusconi, they have an agreed programme and there will be none of the splintering which has damaged the recent governments of the Left.

The Centre Left has attacked Berlusconi’s suitability to be Prime Minister when he is the richest man in Italy, with a widespread financial empire based on the media, property and banking.

He has responded by saying that he would tackle the question of his conflict of interests within a hundred days of being elected.

Confident of victory although the Centre Left believes it has closed down much of the opinion poll lead he enjoyed at the start of his campaign.

Berlusconi says that he hopes Italy will influence elections to come in Britain, France and Germany over the next year or so.

Italian campaign nears end
May 11, 2001
Thatcher backs Italy's Berlusconi
May 11, 2001
Italian election turns presidential
May 9, 2001
Europe on agenda for Italy poll
May 9, 2001
Italy's radicals raise clone debate
May 8, 2001
Italy gears up for election
May 7, 2001
Italian election has wider European repercussions
May 2, 2001

Italian Parliament
Forza Italia
Rutelli 2001

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