If there was ever any doubt that Silvio Berlusconi would make an awkward “junior” partner in Italy’s next government, it was dispelled in sensational fashion this week as the octogenarian former premier was recorded boasting that he exchanged gifts of vodka, wine and “sweet” letters with Russia’s Vladimir Putin – earning rebukes from both Brussels and his coalition partner, Italy’s likely next leader Giorgia Meloni.
Berlusconi’s latest gasconade, which his Forza Italia party sought to deny at first, was confirmed in an audio recording published late on Tuesday by Italy’s La Presse news agency.
“I have reconnected with President Putin – a little, a lot,” the three-time former premier could be heard saying in comments to Forza Italia lawmakers. “He sent me 20 bottles of vodka and a really sweet letter for my birthday. I responded with 20 bottles of Lambrusco [a sparkling Italian red wine] and a similarly sweet letter.”
Berlusconi went on to repeat his past description of the Russian leader as a misunderstood “man of peace”. Among Putin’s “five true friends, I am the number one”, he added with customary bravado.
As word of Berlusconi’s comments spread, his office promptly issued a clumsy denial, claiming he had “told an old story to lawmakers about an episode that occurred years ago”. However, it was soon apparent that the remarks referred to his 86th birthday on September 29, four days after the right-wing coalition led by his ally Giorgia Meloni won the most votes in Italy’s general election.
Berlusconi’s comments instantly made front-page news, throwing into disarray Meloni’s efforts to share out cabinet posts among her allies. Forza Italia, now a junior partner in a coalition dominated by Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy, is gunning for the foreign ministry, among other key cabinet positions.
“Meloni hostage to pro-Russians,” headlined Wednesday's La Repubblica newspaper, writing that the incident “undermined the credibility” of the government she is trying to assemble, “hurting Italy’s relationship with Washington”.
“Berlusconi is back to doing what he does best, the showman,” added La Stampa’s chief editor Massimo Giannini, describing the billionaire media mogul as a “Shakespearean fool wreaking havoc in Meloni’s nascent court”.
Meloni’s awkward allies
Meloni, Italy’s likeliest next leader, was said to be shocked and livid at the latest gaffe by the man long known as the Cavaliere (the Knight), slipping out of parliament by a backdoor on Tuesday evening to avoid the press. As Giannini said, Berlusconi’s latest bluster “shattered the already fragile pro-NATO and Europhile equilibriums that the leader of Brothers of Italy was struggling to guarantee".
Breaking a daylong silence, Meloni issued a statement late on Wednesday insisting that she would lead a government with a clear foreign policy.
“Italy, with its head high, is part of Europe and the Atlantic alliance,” she said. “Whoever doesn't agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government.”
Meloni’s own far-right credentials and long history of eurosceptic tirades have raised eyebrows in some European capitals. But she has staunchly supported NATO and Ukraine in the war, offering strong backing to EU sanctions on Russia.
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Her allies’ past proximity with the Kremlin, however, is cause for concern among Western leaders.
Berlusconi has a long, friendly history with Putin, whom he entertained at his Sardinian villa almost two decades ago. He even visited Crimea with the Russian leader in 2014 after Moscow annexed the peninsula from Ukraine. That same year, Meloni’s other main ally, Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigrant League party, was pictured in Moscow sporting a Putin T-shirt – a stunt he repeated at the European Parliament months later.
Salvini’s party colleague Lorenzo Fontana, who was elected Speaker of the lower house of parliament last week, caused further embarrassment for Meloni on Tuesday by describing EU sanctions against Russia as a “boomerang” for the Italian economy – prompting a swift rebuke from the European Commission in Brussels, which also noted that the sanctions ban imports “as well as gifts” of Russian vodka.
“This is no folklore or jokes,” tweeted Enrico Letta, the head of the centre-left Democratic Party, accusing Italy’s new right-wing majority of “increasing ambiguity” towards Russia. “Who's harming Italy abroad?” Letta asked. “The opposition … (or) the president of the lower Chamber who delegitimizes EU sanctions against Russia? Berlusconi who reconnects with the invader of Ukraine?”
Berlusconi’s hurt pride
It’s not the first time Berlusconi has touted his friendship with Putin and seemingly defended his actions in Ukraine. Late in the election campaign, he appeared to justify Russia's invasion by claiming Putin was merely trying to put “decent people” in power in Kyiv.
His latest comments came just 24 hours after he and Meloni had sought to put days of acrimony behind them at a private meeting, which the two parties said was carried out in a spirit of “maximum cordiality and collaboration”.
Tensions had flared last week over the division of cabinet posts, most spectacularly when Berlusconi scrawled a list of derogatory adjectives about Meloni on a notebook in plain view of photographers in the Italian Senate, calling her “presumptuous, bossy, arrogant, offensive”.
After images of the notes went viral, Meloni shot back that Berlusconi had forgotten one: “That I’m not blackmail-able.”
The exchange followed the election of the new Senate speaker, Italy’s second highest ranking official, in which Meloni outmanoeuvred the 86-year-old former premier to secure the appointment of Brothers of Italy stalwart Ignazio La Russa without handing Berlusconi the cabinet positions he demanded in return.
The tour de force underscored a generational power shift within the Italian right, which a resentful Berlusconi appears unwilling to concede after three decades of dominating the field. He added fuel to the fire in separate remarks on Tuesday, with a patronising and threatening quip: “I have no problem with Meloni. She is friends with my son and her partner works for Mediaset [Berlusconi’s television company].”
The Cavaliere’s reluctance to give way to a female leader who served as junior minister in his last cabinet – and is 41 years his junior – poses a “strategic problem” for Meloni, said La Repubblica’s chief editor Maurizio Molinari, noting that such conflicts are likely to be recurrent in the weeks and months ahead – and not only on foreign policy.
Molinari added: “What the last 48 hours tell us is that Silvio Berlusconi is simply unwilling to hand over the leadership of the right to Giorgia Meloni.”
