A Welshman in Milano

Whilst the Fazio affair trundles on and on still, the Prime Minister is continuing in his quest for world (or at least Italian) domination. I’m sure that the coming elections have nothing at all to do with the recent appointment of his 39 year old daughter, Marina Berlusconi, to the elevated seat of President at the helm of the family flagship company that still effectively controls the media in Italy for Berlusconi, Fininvest SPA. Of course, we all kow that the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has absolutely no involvement whatsoever with Fininvest SPA, don't we. He has repeatedly told us that he has no influence over the running of the company that controls most of the Italian media so, of course, we believe him, don't we.

Interestingly, the Fininvest website describes itself as:

”The company has an established market leadership in a range of sectors, through Mediaset in commercial television, in publishing through Mondadori, in the cinema through Medusa and in sport through A.C. Milan football club. The Group also operates in the information directory sector, where it is represented by Pagine Italia, and it has an important stake, jointly with the Doris Group, in the Mediolanum Group, one of the leading Italian companies specialising in insurance, financial and pension products”.

The fact that the Berlusconi family own and fully control 96% of Fininvest SPA couldn’t have anything to do with this important appointment of his daughter, could it. Of course not, after all, Marina has held the position of Vice President since 1996, sitting on the main board alongside her brother, Piersilvio and her step-sister, Barbara. She is also the Chairman of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SPA, one of the major publishing houses in Italy. How could anyone possibly imagine that any of those appointments - running a company that virtually controls the entire media in Italy - could have anything to do with the Prime Minister – and most certainly couldn’t be misinterpreted as any kind of nepotism either, could they.