Berlusconi at Home

The Malta Independent 

 

On the first day of his taking over the presidency of the EU Council, Silvio Berlusconi came under fire in the European Parliament for using his political power to freeze criminal proceedings against him by the Milan judiciary. These concerned accusations of wrongdoing through his involvement in a 1980’s privatisation of a prominent agro-food group.

His undiplomatic retort with Nazi connotations confirmed all the fears that Berlusconi’s diplomatic skills are not deep enough to preside over the EU at this delicate juncture when it is trying to re-invent itself through a new constitution before embarking on the most ambitious enlargement next year.

It also brought out the worrying control Berlusconi holds over the Italian media. Such undue concentration of media power in the hands of ruling politicians is more reminiscent of Brezhnev’s regime rather than appropriate for a key member founder state of the EU. Berlusconi controls through private interest in Fininvest the three TV channels of Mediaset and through his political role the three RAI TV channels. He also controls prominent sectors of the printed and electronic media.

Berlusconi’s Nazi gaffe in the European Parliament on the very first day of his presidency was extremely well-cushioned by the Italian media to ensure maximum damage control on the home ground at a time that his ruling government coalition is getting perilously shaky.

Yet Berlusconi would feel quite at home on the Malta scene. Government’s control of Public Broadcasting is too evident to be papered over by the supposed impartial tutoring of the Broadcasting Authority. Its has direct control of a TV channel and a daily and Sunday Maltese language newspaper which bring it on perfect par with the opposition that enjoys similar accommodation from the GWU newspapers.

But when it comes to the English language print media, a very influential opinion shaping medium especially among new and floating voters, government has dominant editorial and front-page control through sympathetic private control ownership of such media.

Clearly the Mediterranean mentality of Malta and Italy absorbs nothing from the British culture currently being exhibited by the BBC, a publicly owned media service, that is holding its ground in defending its autonomy and right to criticise the government even if unfairly suspecting that Blair & co. misled public opinion about the real imminence of risk from Iraq’s WMD which are still nowhere to be found.

The dedication of Malta’s English language print media to all causes that could favour the government is by no means restricted to pre-election time when clearly the bias becomes more pronounced. Even in these quiet post-elections days their dedication to government’s editorial wishes remains clear by omission if not by commission.

A year ago this time I had made headlines because I had re-affirmed my opinion that Labour should not re-make removal of VAT an election issue. I declared my intention to withdraw my candidature for last election in case Labour took removal of VAT on board again. As it happened Labour wisely though belatedly adopted a policy to retain VAT. But this time last year the English print media made a feast over-blowing an inexistent rift between me and the Labour leader who was known to have a personal distaste for VAT as in indirect tax system.

Since the election I have been quite outspoken in criticising Labour leader for the way he organised his re-election to leadership when by all reasonable measures he should have stood back to permit fresh faces to give credibility to the adjustment of policies that Labour must compulsorily engineer to take account of new realities.

Yet the English language print media conveniently ignore such news-value laden criticism lest Labour’s leader gets de-stabilised at this delicate stage in full acknowledgement that any change of policies, no matter how sane and reasonable, will not pass the test of electoral credibility at its next re-election bid if presented by old faces.

Berlusconi would definitely feel at home here!