It was bad enough when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi compared Martin Schulz, a German member of the European Parliament, to a Nazi concentration camp guard. But then Northern League firebrand Stefano Stefani — who was clearly in the wrong job as Italy's Deputy Industry Minister for Tourism — wrote a newspaper article calling German tourists "stereotyped blonds with hypernationalist pride ... who noisily invade our beaches." He added that "this Schulz probably grew up ... drinking gigantic amounts of beer and gorging himself on fried potatoes." Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who had been planning to spend a couple of weeks at an Italian friend's home in Pesaro, on the Adriatic coast, was goaded into action by the powerful German tabloid Bild, which suggested that Stefani had "spaghetti for brains" and challenged Schröder to "Nix Bella Italia." Playing to a German national pride that's taken a pounding during the endless economic slump, Schröder announced that he and his family would be enjoying their holiday ... at home.
Grow up, guys. Europe's differences are supposed to be a source of strength. But all it takes is a couple of atavistic turns of phrase to remind everyone that petty prejudices live on — and that politicians and the press are still willing to exploit them. After Schröder nixed Italy, Bild stoked the fires by staging a topless "beach demo" in front of the Italian embassy in Berlin, with a front-page picture of four topless girls as evidence that Germans are "pretty, sexy and charming." No insults there, then.
The kerfuffle leaves Schröder trying to make the best of what sounds like a summer booby prize: two weeks in his native Hanover, famous for its charmlessness. There he can stroll lazily through the world's largest pedestrian zone, visit the zoo with his stepdaughter, Klara, and maybe swim a bit along the 300-m beach of the Maschsee, an artificial lake completed in 1936 as part of the Nazis' efforts to put the unemployed to work. The closest he'll get to his beloved Italian food could be at Hanover's festival of gourmet Italian chefs. Berlusconi's laconic reaction to Schröder's decision to stay at home: "Too bad for him." Well, too bad for everybody. What has been demonstrated in this ridiculous affair is that opportunistic politicians can still make political hay out of ugly national stereotypes. Berlusconi finally, reluctantly, forced an unrepentant Stefani to walk the plank Friday night, but the damage had been done.
Schröder may not feel the Adriatic breezes wafting through his naturally brown hair this summer, but he has gauged the winds of his electorate perfectly. A poll conducted for the daily Die Welt last week showed that 66% of respondents approved of Schröder's cancellation, a stance that varied only marginally among voters of the Christian Democrats, the Greens, or Schröder's own Social Democrats. "He gets what he wants: a big headline," says Karl-Heinz Nassmacher, a political scientist at Oldenburg University. "He's just using opportunities, and that's what a good politician is supposed to do."