MEPs denounce Berlusconi press gagging

On 8 October a majority of European Parliament members denounced the “problem of freedom of the press in Italy”, reports Spanish daily El Periódico, with reference to the Italian prime minister/media mogul’s stranglehold on the Transalpine press. In the course of a “verbal spat” between supporters and detractors of Silvio Berlusconi, the right wing accused the initiators of the statement (left-wing parties, free-market liberals and Greens) of using the European Parliament as a stage for a “political manoeuvre to attack a political adversary”, adds the Barcelona-based daily. “Go protest in Iran, you cowards, where freedom of the press is really threatened!” purportedly yelled Mario Borghezio, a representative of the Liga Nord, Berlusconi’s partners in government. But most of the parliamentary groups came out in favour of Community legislation to “safeguard media plurality and limit its concentration”.