Silvio Berlusconi made a storming comeback to Brussels as
Italian prime minister Friday by accusing the European Union's top officials of
helping his opponents by "talking too much."
Berlusconi, who was taking part in his first EU summit since his re-election in
April, was referring to the fact that EU commissioners often make their
recommendations to member states public.
"The forecasts and recommendations that the commissioners give, and which
appear in the newspapers every other day, provoke negative reactions among the
citizens of the EU, who see (the commission) as a body that imposes constraints
and creates problems," Berlusconi said.
"Moreover, they create difficulties for governments because they offer
ammunition to opposition parties, whether of the right or of the left, to
criticize the government," he added.
The outspoken media mogul-turned-politician has frequently courted controversy.
In one of his most famous outbursts in 2003, while presenting the Italian presidency
of the EU to the European Parliament, he likened a critical German member of
the European Socialist Party to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
His latest views were dismissed by the European Commission's chief, Jose Manuel
Barroso, on Friday.
"The commission is an independent institution, it is not
a secretariat for member states," Barroso said, according to dpa.