Italy, Germany: Merkel Didn't 'Kick Out' Berlusconi

World | December 30, 2011, Friday // 19:42|  views

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Italian and German officials have formally refuted a newspaper report claiming German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a "secret" October telephone call to Italy's president had asked for the ouster of then premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano's office issued a statement denying the account, which had appeared in the US daily Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

"With reference to some press rumous - international and Italian - it is stated that in the phone call, not at all secret, of October 20, 2011, to the president of the republic, Giorgio Napolitano, the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Angela Merkel, did not pose any questions on Italian domestic politics," the statement said, as cited by German press agency DPA.

"Even less so, did she (Merkel) advance any request to "change the prime minister," the statement added.

"The conversation (between Merkel and Napolitano) - it is stressed - had as its objective only the measures taken to reduce the deficit, in defence of the euro and on structural reforms," the statement said.

"Nothing more can be added to the accurate account of the conversation by the office of the Italian president," a German government spokeswoman in Berlin said when contacted by telephone for comment.

In its report billed as a "reconstruction" of events surrounding the debt crisis threatening the euro, the WSJ said that Merkel in her night-time call to the 86-year-old Naoplitano had "trod on delicate ground for a German chancellor."

"Europe's leaders have an unwritten rule not to intervene in one another's domestic politics. But Ms Merkel was gently prodding Italy to change its prime minister, if the incumbent-Silvio Berlusconi couldn't change Italy," the WSJ said.

The WSJ said it had based its reconstruction on "interviews with more than two dozen policy makers, including many leading actors, as well as examinations of key documents".

The sources "revealed how Germany responded to the dangers in Italy by imposing its power on a divided euro zone," the WSJ said.

Berlusconi resigned in November 12, 2011, after his conservative coalition failed to win an outright majority in a parliament vote.

He was replaced by former European Union commissioner, Mario Monti, whose technocratic government has introduced a series of austerity measures aimed at tackling Italy's debt crisis.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, Italian Prime Minister, Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, Silvio Berlusconi, debt crisis, debt crises, euro zone, Eurozone, Germany, Italy, Mario Monti

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