Welcome to buffone.eu – the homepage dedicated to bring awareness about the buffone (Silvio Berlusconi) inside and outside Italy.

This website is not about left or right-wing politics, but rather about right and wrong and why Berlusconi is wrong.

Why the name buffone.eu – the French magasin has called Berlusconi the ‘buffoon of Europe’. In Italy the nickname has been used frequently but was made famous by a gentleman by the name of Piero Ricca. So much for buffoon or buffone. The ‘eu’ of course is to indicated that Berlusconi is not only an Italian problem but is a European embarassment – and problem. The fact that the EU institutions or bodies have turned a blind eye to the biggest political embarassment in Europe since WW2, is worrying to say the least.

Let it, again, be crystalclear, that this site is not about left or right wing politics. Let it also be clear that the buffone is not the sole reason for Italy’s continued troubles (which he of course firmly denies that it has!) nor will everything be solved his removal. However, the buffone is a symptom of a deeper disease. Removing the symptom (buffone) obviously does not provide the cure, but realising that the buffone is a symptom is already a step in the right direction!

The departing point of this website is a belief that a modern democracy rests on some principles:

• Separation of politics and  media (unlike Italy where the buffone is Prime minister and mediamogul)
• Governments not passing legislation aimed at the personal benefit of its prime minister
• An institutional setup which would not allow the above two to happen
• A legal system which works and where powerful people cannot misuse their power to turn verdicts in their favor.
• No prime minister can blacklist journalists (which Berlusconi has done several times and appalingly succesfully).

The creators of this website believes that these principles are vital and more fundamental to a democracy than the notion of left and right. Or in other words, the principles apply to left, right and centre.

The creators of this website furthermore deplore that the principles listed above are being violated while European politicians sit idly by year after year not dealing with the problem. The only slight achievement was the collective ridiculing of Berlusconi in the European parliament in July 2003.

Recently, on 11 October 2009, the issue of media control in Italy was again discussed in the European parliament but so far the Commission has said it will not put forward a such European directive. Unfortunately.

This website is a collection of facts and excerpts of or about the buffone and will not report slander and mere speculation.

A bit more on the choice of the term ‘buffone’. It dates back to a trial in 2003 when activist Piero Ricca called out loud to Silvio Berlusconi that he should let himself be prosecuted and not use his immunity (also at the time Berlusconi was Italy’s prime minister) calling him ‘buffone’.

Although Berlusconi on the spot exclaimed that he wanted to sue Piero Rocca (for having called him buffone) which he later did. Piero Rocca welcomed it saying that it would be easy to prove that Berlusconi was in fact a ‘buffone’. Piero Rocca was acquitted in 2006.

If you would like to see what might have led Piero Rocca to call Berlusconi a clown then you can see many examples under ‘clown acts’.