Silvio Berlusconi: Mario Monti too 'servile' to Germany

The Telegraph ^ | 9/25/2012

[bruinbirdman]

Italy's ex-premier and possible future candidate Silvio Berlusconi criticised his successor Mario Monti for raising taxes in an interview out on Tuesday, accusing him of being "conditioned" by the left.

Berlusconi also told the newly-launched Italian edition of The Huffington Post that Monti was too "servile to Germany, a hegemonic state that is dictating rules on discipline and austerity to other European state countries."

The former prime minister also criticised mistakes made in introducing the euro but said "it would be difficult to exit the eurozone now."

He said the only option was to convince Germany that austerity alone is not enough or risk "the end of the single currency and the destruction of Europe."

Monti "started out well... but unfortunately just at the moment when both austerity and growth were needed, the left conditioned Monti's government," Berlusconi told the newly-launched Italian edition of The Huffington Post.

Berlusconi, who has kept out of the public eye since stepping down in November 2011 following a parliamentary revolt and a wave of financial market panic, said Monti had "preferred raising taxes to relaunching production."

Allies in his People of Freedom party, which has performed badly in local elections and is riven by infighting,

[Olog-hai]

Monti won’t bite the hand that fed him.

[bruinbirdman]

Berlusconi and his party were responsible for the defeat of every single socialist in the Italian parliament, thus becoming a target not only of Italy's left but, also, EU's socialist commissariat.

Berlusconi was carrying out a phased, nationalist, conservative, austerity and growth policy until ousted by the EU Central Committe not the Italian electorate.

President Sarkozy, as conservative a French politician as they get, who began to trim the public sector, was forced out by a collective effort of French socialists and EU Central Committee collectivists.

yitbos

[Olog-hai]

Berlusconi is a fascist, not a conservative. Fascists have always been against the purely Marxist left. Same goes for Netanyahu-hatin’ Sarkozy (although he’s not as far into that sphere as people like LePen).

[bruinbirdman]

One must differentiate between euro-conservative vis-a-vis U.S. conservative, n'est-ce pas?

Reducing the size of government is conservative policy in any country?

yitbos

[Olog-hai]

There are no euro-conservatives as we understand conservatism in the USA. I have never heard of either Berlusconi (a self-avowed apologist for fascists/fascism) or Sarkozy (an unrepentant Europhile) aiming to reduce size of government, at least significantly. Support for the European Union can never be defined as supporting reduction of the size of government, certainly, since by definition it is support for increasing the size of the central government in Brussels.