Berlusconi gets rap from Monti over Russian ‘accession’

Date: 12/06/03

COMPETITION Commissioner Mario Monti has handed Italian compatriot Silvio Berlusconi a rap for giving Russia false hopes that it might one day join the EU.

The Italian premier, who will take over the rotating presidency of the EU next month, has made no secret of his desire to see Russia join the Union - even though he has described the bloc as a modern-day USSR.

But Monti told a conference in the port city of Genoa that Berlusconi should bite his tongue in future.

"One must realize the explosive expectation this engenders," he said, according to press agency ANSA.

Berlusconi said recently that Russia should enter the European Union "in order to make the EU a political and military power as well as an economic one".

Mario Monti, European Commissioner for Competition, has told his fellow countryman Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister. That he should not have suggested that Russia might one day join the EU.