Berlusconi team splits opinion in Italy and Europe

ROME (Reuters) - While Silvio Berlusconi is enjoying unusually widespread praise at home for his sober, consensual new leadership style, Europe worries that Italy's new government has a right-wing agenda that is encouraging racism.

In contrast to his previous two terms, the 71-year-old billionaire prime minister has avoided communist-baiting, gaffes and jokes, and projects a seriousness appreciated even by the centre left, which he defeated in the April election.

Abroad it is his tough measures on immigration and the neo-fascist roots of his allies that monopolize attention. One British newspaper called Rome's new right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, "the New Duce" after dictator Benito Mussolini.

These views are hard to reconcile, especially when leftist artists and intellectuals praise Berlusconi and even warm to Alemanno, a former neo-fascist youth leader, for defending Italian cinema against Hollywood glitz.

Even staunchly centre-left rapper Jovanotti blushed with pleasure when the new culture minister, poet Sandro Bondi, wrote verses in his praise. "Music's not right-wing or left-wing and I'm glad Bondi appreciates me," said Jovanotti.

"I can't say I like Berlusconi," said left-wing journalist Miriam Mafai of La Repubblica. "But many of the things he's doing are things the centre left wanted to but didn't manage."

Political analysts wonder whether it is just a honeymoon or Italian politics are entering a brave new world of constructive debate.

Making good on campaign promises, Berlusconi made new rubbish dumps in Naples military zones to try to end the city's trash crisis and drafted tough legislation against illegal immigrants and crime.

RESCUE BID

He may yet conjure up a rescue bid for the airline Alitalia and has cut taxes to try to offset recession while vowing to keep tight control of spending and Italy's sky-high debt.

"For decades Italy was bogged down seeking compromise at all costs and not taking decisions. That is over," said Berlusconi ally Gianfranco Fini. "Berlusconi has realized that governing means taking responsibility for sometimes painful decisions."

Shocking attacks on Roma camps and Bengali shops lend weight to warnings from the European Parliament, rights groups, the U.N. refugee agency and individual EU partners such as Spain and Romania that Italy is at risk of a wave of racism.

The presence of ministers from the anti-immigrant Northern League, including one blamed for riots in Libya in 2006 with his T-shirt showing Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, is also of concern to Italy's Muslim citizens and trading partners.

The League runs vigilante patrols in northern towns and its deputy leader Roberto Maroni is now interior minister. He put together draft immigration laws aimed against Roma people, mainly from Eastern Europe, whose camps are seen as dens of crime.

Fire-bomb attacks on Roma camps are not unheard of and a whole settlement was evacuated in Naples this month when residents, after reports that a Roma girl had tried to snatch an Italian baby from her home, took the law into their own hands.

Last weekend 20 hooded men shouting "dirty foreigners" smashed up three Bengali shops in Rome after a handbag theft.

The right's response varied. Alemanno, once youth leader of a neo-fascist party that has evolved into the National Alliance led by Fini, paid a visit to Roma camps and Bengali shopkeepers.

"NOT RACIST"

Maroni condemned the violence but suggested immigrants might bring it upon themselves.

"Italy is not a racist country," he told one paper. "Episodes like this are sometimes fuelled by crimes committed by illegal immigrants: gypsies snatching new-born children, sexual crimes by Romanians ... ."

European history professor Donald Sassoon said commentators abroad were often tempted to hark back to Mussolini and "do the usual superior thing and say 'Oh, well, the Italians have the DNA of fascism in their genetic make up'."

The University of London professor said Italy was neither more nor less racist than other European countries but had not yet "established an anti-racist ethos".

"Italy was not a country that imported labor until the 1970s -- it exported labor. So they have not had so much time to debate the issue. So in a way their racism -- because unquestionably, many are -- is a new one," he told Reuters.

Many other European countries had parties with a xenophobic agenda that regularly got about 20 percent of votes, he said.

"The difference is that in Italy, they are in power. But it doesn't mean Italians are much different from the Dutch or Danes who are normally regarded as the pinnacle of civilization."

(editing by Andrew Dobbie)