Berlusconi acted like ‘jilted lover’ after being shut out of Tony Blair talks
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He was said to have been particularly ‘hurt’ as he had backed Britain and the US over the invasion of Iraq. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi acted like a “jilted lover” after being shut out of talks between Tony Blair and the leaders of France and Germany, according to newly released government files.
![[Tony Blair felt it necessary to travel to Rome to personally placate the unhappy premier and assure him of his continuing support]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/09/09/11/SEI176705802.jpg)
Papers released to the National Archives in Kew, west London, show the Italian leader was so incensed at being excluded from a trilateral summit of the three big European powers that he threatened to challenge Britain’s EU rebate at every opportunity.
He was said to have been particularly “hurt” as, unlike the French and Germans, he had backed Britain and the US over the invasion of Iraq – even going so far as to enlist the support of president George Bush to express his unhappiness. The three-way meeting in Berlin with president Jacques Chirac and chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in February 2004 was part of a British attempt to gain traction with the two nations traditionally regarded as the main drivers of the EU.
However it went down extremely badly with some of the other member states – none more so than the Italians. Britain’s ambassador to Rome, Sir Ivor Roberts, said he was “taken aback” at the strength of feelings when he met Mr Berlusconi’s foreign affairs adviser, Giovanni Castellaneta, for lunch ahead of an Italy-England rugby international.
