Commissioner's aide says media is spreading lies about tongue-tied Prodi

The European Commission has accused the media of spreading lies about its President, Mr Romano Prodi. In an unusual move yesterday, Mr Prodi's spokesman, Mr Jonathan Faull, claimed the media had invented harmful myths about the Commission President, including the allegation that he cannot speak French or English.

"He considers most of the criticism we have read in recent days thoroughly unjustified and unfounded. It is a repetition, barely reheated, of stupid lies," Mr Faull said.

Many European newspapers criticised Mr Prodi last week when it emerged that he had stayed away from an EU summit press conference because he did not want to be sidelined by Belgium's long-winded Prime Minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt. Mr Prodi complained that Mr Verhofstadt's practice of repeating everything in French and Flemish left little time for anyone else to answer questions.

Mr Prodi had an earlier fit of pique at the start of the Ghent summit when he complained publicly about the decision of France, Britain and Germany to hold a separate meeting before the summit began.

Mr Prodi denied this week that he is considering resigning less than halfway through his five-year term. He was speaking after receiving support from an unexpected source, the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Silvio Berlusconi.

Mr Berlusconi said that Mr Prodi had endured gross personal insults and a contemptuous tone from the European media. Mr Berlusconi suggested that the Commission President was being targeted because he is Italian.

"The aspiration of certain political lobbies is to turn Italy and its ruling class into a scapegoat for things that don't work," he said.

Mr Faull said he did not believe that Mr Prodi was being targeted because of his nationality but he claimed that the Commission President was being subjected to a concerted campaign of criticism.

"There is a concerted campaign in the sense that one sees a chain reaction over a number of days of a story being repeated in different countries across Europe," he said.

Under EU law, Mr Prodi can only be removed from office if the European Parliament votes by a two thirds majority to sack the entire Commission, as happened in 1999. If Mr Prodi steps down voluntarily, his successor is chosen by EU heads of state and governments. There is little chance that he will resign of his own accord.