BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday denied tensions between the government and the Berlusconi family’s Mediaset TV group after it broadcast off-air sexist comments from her partner which played a part in their separation.
“The relations between the government and Mediaset are the (normal) relations between the government and a large Italian company,” she told reporters after a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels.
Mediaset is part of the MFE-MediaForEurope group owned by the heirs of the late Silvio Berlusconi, a former prime minister whose Forza Italia party is a Meloni coalition ally.
Meloni broke up with Andrea Giambruno, the father of her daughter, after a Mediaset satirical show broadcast off-air video clips last week in which he used foul language and appeared to make advances to a female colleague.
Giambruno also hosted his own news programme with Mediaset, Italy’s leading commercial TV operator.
Italian newspapers reported Meloni was upset with Mediaset after it screened the videos, sparking fears among investors that the issue risked damaging the relationship between MFE and Meloni’s administration.
Meloni dismissed such reports as speculation and also denied any rift with Antonio Tajani, the foreign minister who took the reins of the Forza Italia after Silvio Berlusconi died in June.
“There are no problems between me and Tajani, there are no problems with Mediaset either,” she said.
Marina Berlusconi, the late tycoon’s eldest daughter who together with her brother Pier Silvio has assumed effective control of the family business empire, in recent days also dismissed the reports and said she held Meloni in high esteem.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Keith Weir)
