ITALY: "Mr prime minister, what exactly will you do if you lose in the general elections next April?" asked the man from The Irish Times.
A silence fell around the luncheon table in government house and Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, paused for a very long moment before replying: "That is an eventuality that I have not even minimally taken into consideration."
Just four months away from Italy's general elections, Mr Berlusconi was in typically exuberant and optimistic mood when he played host yesterday to the resident foreign press corps in Rome. Even though polls for months have been suggesting that his centre-right "Freedom House" alliance will be beaten by the centre-left, Mr Berlusconi suggested yesterday that his own polls were telling him a very different story.
Remarkably, the man often referred to as the "Great Communicator" claimed that he and his centre-right coalition have failed to get out the good news about his government's achievements since taking office in June 2001. Part of the problem, he suggested, was that the vast majority of the Italian print press are against him and his government.
Tactfully, Mr Berlusconi didn't concede that, directly or indirectly, he controls 90 per cent of Italian terrestrial television.
"You foreign journalists will not believe me when I say that the Italian press is against me," he said. He was right.
Mr Berlusconi had kept the journalists waiting for well over an hour primarily because of an emergency cabinet meeting, held in the wake of the resignation on Monday of Bank of Italy governor Antonio Fazio, currently being investigated for "insider trading".
Although admitting that the six-month long "Fazio saga" had done serious damage to the international credibility of the Italian banking and business system, Mr Berlusconi played down the long-term implications of the affair, arguing that the Italian banking system is basically sound.
Despite the fact that the former governor is alleged to have favoured Italian banks over foreign rivals in two takeover battles this summer for the BNL and Antonveneta banks, Mr Berlusconi said foreign banks should not be afraid of investing in Italy.
Asked about the alleged CIA kidnapping of Egyptian imam and suspected terrorist Abu Omar, in an apparent "rendition" operation in Milan on February 17th, 2003, Mr Berlusconi said his government had no knowledge of the affair. The prime minister, however, refused to condemn such rendition operations, saying that in the fight against international terrorism, "states should be allowed to defend themselves.should have the capacity to contrast terrorism".
In a wide-ranging discussion, he also confirmed that Italy was on full terrorist alert over the holiday period, that he welcomed Turkey's EU membership application, that British prime minister Tony Blair had shown himself to be a "real statesman" in his handling of the British term of the EU presidency, and that Italy was too "Catholic" a country to consider same-sex marriage legislation along the lines of that introduced by the government in Spain.
However, he saved the best news for last, concluding the luncheon (which featured the patriotic dish of tricolour pennelle pasta) with the news that he will shortly release a new CD of love songs co-written with his regular partner, Neopolitan guitarist Mariano Apicella.
"Poor old Apicella, I lock him into the kitchen with myself late on a Saturday night and he doesn't get out until we've written a new song."
At 69 years of age, the ebullient Mr Berlusconi is still a'rocking and a'rolling, all the way to the ballot box.