Mr Silvio Berlusconi's aggressive fight against corruption charges may help the prime minister avoid a verdict arriving while Italy holds the EU presidency, but it could make for a stormy six-month tenure.
Mr Berlusconi's rebuttal of graft charges in a Milan court yesterday, when he dragged European Commission President Mr Romano Prodi into the judicial quagmire, has made already-frosty relations between the Italian pair even icier.
Mr Berlusconi, the first sitting Italian prime minister to appear at his own trial, is charged with bribing judges to prevent the sale of state food company SME to his rival Mr Carlo De Benedetti. He denies the charges.
Today, Mr Berlusconi accused Mr Prodi, who oversaw the 1985 deal, of trying to sell SME at a cut-rate price as a "gift" to a left-wing entrepreneur.
Mr Prodi, widely seen as the man who could return to Italian politics and unite the fragmented centre-left opposition against Mr Berlusconi, retaliated by saying he had acted in Italy's interest.
Documenting the long-running bitterness between the two, the Corriere della Seranewspaper said Mr Berlusconi once dismissed Mr Prodi as "that nice cyclist" while the Commission chief once remarked: "Compared to Berlusconi, Goebbels was just a child".