Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi narrowly escaped an embarrassing rebuke from the European Parliament on Wednesday over media freedoms in Italy.
Berlusconi's conservative allies in the assembly's largest group, the European People's Party, managed to drum up the one extra vote needed to throw out a resolution backed by Liberals, Socialists, Greens and Communists meant to chide the Italian leader over press freedoms.
The contentious vote _ which needed 50 percent plus one to pass _ left the 736-member European Union assembly as polarized as ever over Berlusconi and his policies, an issue that never ceases to draw bad blood between the parliament and Rome.
Backers of the resolution called the vote by an unusually packed chamber of deputies unprecedented.
"It's a historic vote; 338 for, 338 against. I think it shows there is a real split in the European Parliament," said Italian Liberal Niccolo Rinaldi. He said the vote however managed to raise awareness of the issue.
Amid a highly charged atmosphere, lawmakers voted down eight separate resolutions on media freedoms "in Italy and the European Union."
The aim of Berlusconi's European critics was to get the EU's executive commission and fundamental rights agency to launch probes into media ownership and control, and so raise awareness across Europe over increasing attempts to concentrate media ownership in too few hands.
Lawmakers critical of Berlusconi increasingly fear his control of the country's largest private broadcaster and indirect control over the state-run broadcaster RAI allow him to control journalists and manipulate coverage, threatening EU fundamental rights. These concerns have been rejected by the Italian government.
Berlusconi's backers saw the resolutions as a personal witch-hunt against the Italian premier and attempts to unjustly meddle in Italy's internal affairs.
"You are bullying a prime minister," Hungarian conservative Jozsef Szajer told lawmakers during the vote. He questioned why the resolutions did not include wider criticism of other socialist European leaders over press freedoms. "The parliament should not accept double standards," he added.
Carlo Fidanza, an Italian conservative from Berlusconi's party, said the move to criticize Berlusconi was a plot by leftists in Italy and elsewhere.
"We've seen that Italians are not concerned about the freedom of the press," he told the chamber. "This has nothing to do with the Italian prime minister ... If Italians are afraid and concerned it's about the financial crisis, illegal immigration."
In an annual ranking of media freedom just released by Reporters Without Borders, Italy fell by five positions this year to 49th place. It is the worst ranking for Italy, one of the EU's six founding members, the media rights group said, citing among other things Berlusconi's "harassment of the media."
Tens of thousands of people, including journalists and media rights activists, held a rally earlier this month in Rome to accuse Berlusconi of trying to silence critical voices.
The premier has recently sued two leftist newspapers over their coverage of a sex scandal engulfing him.
The EU assembly did manage five years ago to pass a similar resolution that denounced Berlusconi's influence over television in Italy. Lawmakers at the time demanded new Europe-wide restrictions on politicians with media holdings.
However, the European Commission, not wanting to interfere in such a sensitive issue, ignored the call.
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Associated Press Writer Alessandra Rizzo in Rome contributed to this report.
