06.03.2008 - 09:15 CET | By Leigh Phillips
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The leaders of the socialists and liberals in the European Parliament are to campaign for Walter Veltroni, the head of the Democratic Party in Italy – the country's centre-left political alliance.
"We don't have a concrete date confirmed yet, but the intention is certainly there that [Socialist leader Martin Schulz] will go to Italy. There are several occasions where he could turn up to support Mr Veltroni," a spokesperson for the socialist group said.
Liberal leader Graham Watson said: "I should be down there right now, campaigning for Veltroni. I hope Martin Schultz will join me."
"I told Martin a while ago, 'We should go and do something in Italy,' and he said, 'Yup!'", Mr Watson said at a lunch time meeting with journalists on Tuesday (4 March).
Italy is to have snap elections on 13 and 14 April with opinion polls showing that the perma-tanned 72-year old business tycoon and centre-right politician Silvio Berlusconi may be voted back into the driving seat.
He has already held two terms in office and last resigned in May 2006.
A Berlusconi return to the Italian stage is unlikely to be greeted with roars of enthusiasm in other capitals, including Brussels.
Critics have pointed to his near monopoly on television, fondness for interfering with the country's laws to suit himself and his tendency for unilateral stances on foreign policy.
On a personal level, Mr Schultz and Mr Berlusconi have a combative history dating back to 2003, when the German socialist MEP took the then Italian prime minister to task in the European Parliament for his domestic policy.
Mr Berlusconi caused uproar by comparing Mr Schulz to a Nazi guard.
"Mister Schultz, I know a movie-producer in Italy, who is making a film about Nazi concentration-camps. I will suggest you to play the role of a Kapo (concentration-camp inmate appointed as supervisor). You are perfect!"
For his part, Mr Watson explained his reason for supporting a left-coalition in Italy by saying he was very impressed by Mr Veltroni.
"The other day in [Spanish daily] El Pais, he sounded more like a liberal than a socialist when he said: 'We're reformists. We're not the Left.'"
Walter Veltroni, mayor of Rome until February this year, has played a prominent role in the transformation of his eurocommunist Italian Communist Party into a moderate social-democratic party in the 1990s and later the unification of many of the country's left-of-centre groups and its move to more a US-Democratic-Party-style left-liberal philosophy.
A recent poll suggested Mr Berlusconi's conservative opposition are maintaining the lead with 45.5 percent but that Mr Veltroni's centre-left Democratic Party, plus its two small allies (Italia dei Valori & radicali, ndr), are catching up. They now have 39 percent.