Berlusconi's Cujo Costs $546,000 per Day, Italian Taxpayers Will Pay the Bill

Berlusconi's Cujo Costs $546,000 per Day, Italian Taxpayers Will Pay the Bill :: Mr Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian tycoon that won the April 2008 elections by landslide to become Prime Minister for the third time, may enjoy all sort of luxuries, of course, but at least one of these will not cost him a dime because Italian taxpayers are the ones that will have to pay the bill: his Cujo.

By the way, this is not really a dog: we are talking about the Editor-in-chief of Rete4 (Network Four), one of the three TV channels owned by Mediaset, Berlusconi's prominent enterprise. His real name, Emilio Fede -- "Fede" translates to Faith -- is commonly mispelled by his opponents as "Emilio Fido" (Emilio the Cujo) a calembour that pinpoints his ironclad loyalty to Mr Berlusconi.

A decision by the European Court of Justice states that Rete4 TV can no longer broadcast by analog signal, and that another TV network, Europa7, had the right to enter the market. The dispute dates back to 1996 and has gone through all due process of law up to the European level. In time the situation got more and more entangled: according to the European judges, Emilio Fede's Rete4, as well as RAI2, one of the channels of the Italian state-owned corporation, must switch to satellite broadcasting by 2009; Italy must pay a fine of €350,000 ($546,000) per day, retroactively in effect since January 1, 2006. But the law governing the italian telecommunication and media system, approved under Berlusconi's rule in 2006, a law that the left-wing government did not dare to change, postpones the switch to 2012.

Opposition groups such as that organized by Beppe Grillo, the showman turned blogger and political agitator, or the "Italia dei Valori" (Italy of Values) party, led by the former prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro, are mounting the protest both against "the Cujo" and against Berlusconi, accused of crafting laws exclusively tailored to his benefit. The government says it will do his best and asap. By 2012, the final bill of the fine could amount to €894,250,000 ($1,395,030,000). To Italian taxpayers dog's barking may eventually be worse than his bite.