mr president it reflects no credit on this house that the whole of our agenda today the whole of our vote should have been taken up with a matter that ought never to have come to the floor
it lies beyond the purview of this parliament and is within the prerogatives of one of our member states
i hold no particular brief for silvio berlusconi
i am delighted that the british conservatives no longer sit with his party in the european people's party but i cannot have been alone in being put off by the pharisaical self-righteousness that we have heard from the other side during this debate
they complained about mr berlusconi having immunity from prosecution without mentioning that they as meps have a similar immunity
they complain about his domination of the media without mentioning the tens of millions of euros of public money that this parliament spends on promoting itself
this resolution and the fact that it came before us at all today reflects no credit on anyone no credit on the italians who took to this chamber an argument that they had lost in their own nation state and no credit on the rest of us for presuming to get involved
such issues ought to be properly determined through the national democratic mechanisms and procedures of the italian republic
let me repeat my call for the lisbon treaty to be put to a vote
