Schroeder Skips Trip to Italy

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder scrapped a planned vacation in Italy after a series of diplomatic spats with Rome, opting Wednesday to rest at home in Germany instead.

The Italian prime minister’s laconic response: “I’m sorry for him.”

Schroeder’s decision to ditch a trip to the Marche region next week followed an Italian official’s assertion that German tourists were “stereotyped blonds with a hyper-nationalist pride.”

The chancellor’s spokesman, Bela Anda, said the quarrel would make it impossible for Schroeder and his family to have “a restful and undisturbed vacation.”

Germany’s conservative opposition brushed aside the row as “pure summer theater” and said Schroeder’s decision was an attempt to distract voters from domestic problems.

Italy and Germany have been on diplomatic tenterhooks since Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told a European lawmaker from Germany last week that he would make a good Nazi prison guard in a film. Berlusconi made the gaffe after the German lawmaker questioned the prime minister about laws that have eased his legal problems in Italy.

Schroeder initially held on to his vacation plans -- accepting Berlusconi’s expression of regret.

However, tensions escalated after Italian Industry Ministry Undersecretary Stefano Stefani lampooned German vacationers as “stereotyped blonds” and Germany as “a country intoxicated with arrogant certainties.”

Some Italian ministers had distanced themselves from Stefani, to the satisfaction of many German officials. Still, two of Schroeder’s ministers called for Stefani’s removal from office -- and the controversy smoldered.

“You have to ask if a man is fit for this job, with responsibility for tourism, if he says German tourists aren’t needed anymore,” German Interior Minister Otto Schily said Wednesday.

Schily, who owns a house in Tuscany, said he had yet to decide whether he would take a vacation in Italy this year.