I am not ill, I'm Superman: Berlusconi

Lashes out at estranged wife's claim that he is not well

Lashes out at estranged wife's claim that he is "not well"

Stung by months of scrutiny over his sex life,u00a0 Italy's 72-year-old furious Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, lashed out at the media and his estranged wife Veronica Lario (53), claiming to be 'superman'.

As a riposte to his critics and to Lario, who in announcing in May that she wanted a divorce accused him of being "not well" and obsessed with young women, Berlusconi said, "I'm not ill.
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You only have to look at what I've achieved over the last 15 months in government to see that not only am I not in poor health, I'm Superman."

In Happier Times: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and wife Veronica Lario during a visit to Vatican city in 2004. Berlusconi is currently engaged in a feud with the Catholic Church.

EU anger

Meanwhile, angered by the EU's investigations into Italy's controversial policy of driving refugees in boats back to the North African coast, Berlusconi said on Tuesday that EU commissioners should not be allowed to speak publicly about such issues.

"We will not give our vote, effectively blocking the workings of the European Council, unless they prevent European commissioners and their spokesmen from speaking publicly on any issue," Berlusconi said.
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Johannes Laitenberger, the European Commission's official spokesman, said, "We speak on issues that we are told to speak about. We cannot be intimidated."

A spokesman for the Italian embassy in London insisted that Berlusconi "not attacked nor threatened" the European Commission and was simply seeking that the Commission speak with one voice.

Berlusconi's campaign against the press for its coverage of a string of sex scandals broadened when his lawyers demanded two million euros in libel damages from the Left-wing Italian newspaper L'Unita.

Offends Vatican

His relations with the Vatican also suffered after a newspaper owned by his family launched a bitter attack on the editor of a respected Catholic daily.
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The offensives against the EU, the media and the Church were signs that the prime minister was feeling increasingly threatened, said James Walston, a political scientist at the American University of Rome.