Financial Times

Berlusconi accused over media law
By Guy Dinmore in Rome
friday may 23 2008 20:15

Only two weeks back in office, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister and media mogul, is already under fire for allegedly using parliament to promote his business interests and leading the country into conflict with Brussels over a host of issues.

Government and party officials insisted on Friday that legislation put to parliament on Thursday fulfilled EU directives on opening the Italian television market, which is dominated by three channels of the state broadcaster Rai and three by Mediaset, owned by the billionaire Berlusconi family.

“What the EU dictates is just what we are doing,” said a spokesman for Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.

Opposition parliamentarians insisted that a government amendment, presented amid uproar, was intended to protect Mediaset’s Rete 4 channel from competition. The proposed legislation, they said, ran counter to a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and would fuel infringement proceedings initiated by the European competition commissioner.

Antonio di Pietro, leader of the opposition Italy of Values, blasted the prime minister for “making a law for his own use and consumption”. Referring to the possibility of European regulators fining Italy €300,000 ($473,000, £239,000) a day for its media infringements, he added: “Once again it will be the Italians who pay for Silvio Berlusconi.”

The European Commission is already investigating whether a €300m loan extended by the previous government to the ailing Alitalia flag carrier amounted to illegal state aid. Giulio Tremonti, finance minister, confused the issue further this week by saying the loan would be made an asset on the books.

Earlier this week, Mr Berlusconi’s proposals aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration and “overstay” by EU citizenscaused alarm in Brussels, particularly over the fate of Gypsies denied Italian residency.

The proposed media legislation would allow Mediaset’s Rete 4 to keep using its terrestrial analogue frequencies until the final switchover to digital broadcasting, which was set for 2012. A parliamentary vote could be held next Tuesday.

In January, the ECJ found that Italy’s broadcasting system was in breach of EU law in its non-transparent allocation of television frequencies. Europe’s highest court was ruling in the case of Europa 7, a private Italian broadcaster that won rights to a broadcast licence in 1999 but could not obtain a frequency that had already been allocated to Rete 4.

Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, said at the time that member states must not use frequency allocation to protect the position of existing operators.