Brussels, 17/09/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 17 September, the International Press Association (IPA) denounced the “attempts at intimidation” made by Silvio Berlusconi, President of the Italian Council, on spokesmen of the European Commission. In this way, IPA reports, Berlusconi hoped to influence the European commissioners themselves (EUROPE 9970). In a press release, the IPA states that the Italian government, through its Council president, is by no means the first to seek to suppress information that could be diffused in Brussels by various European bodies and institutions. However, it goes on to say, this is most certainly the first time that such interference has been done so openly, in such an obvious and intimidating manner. This denunciation “has nothing personal or political” about it but aims exclusively at preventing the spokespersons of the Commission or other European institutions, who come “under this sort of intimidation”, from becoming over-cautious and applying a policy of withholding information or simply sending out commonplace information, the journalists' association explains. Accepting this kind of interference from a public authority of one EU member state in the information policy of the European institutions would be tantamount to accepting the fact that these institutions should be compelled to carry out a permanent exercise of self-censorship rather than assume their democratic responsibility. Accepting this kind of interference would also be tantamount to depriving accredited journalists of an independent source of information from their national public authorities, hence depriving the citizens of member states from uninhibited and critical information, which is one of the foundations of democracy, IPA concludes. (H.B./transl.jl)