LUXEMBOURG, Oct 17: Italy was holding out on Wednesday for a top-level explanation from Belgium as to why its foreign minister has ranked Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on par with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.

So nasty was the spat that Italian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero pointedly refused to shake hands with Belgian counterpart Louis Michel during an EU Council of Ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg on Wednesday.

The feud threatened to cast a pall over a summit of EU heads of state and government in the Belgian city of Ghent this Friday, which Berlusconi is set to attend.

Belgium currently holds the rotating presidency of the 15-nation European Union.

Belgian officials confirmed Wednesday that Ruggiero sent a letter on Friday to Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, asking him to explain why Michel had given Berlusconi a “zero over 10” grade on a Belgian public affairs TV show.

Michel proffered the score when he was asked to rank the performance of various world leaders in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon

Only the Taliban, accused of harbouring the Islamic extremists blamed for the terrorist attacks, got a grade from Michel as rock-bottom as Berlusconi’s.

Instead of replying directly to Ruggiero’s letter, the Belgian officials said, Verhofstadt sent it on to Michel, a francophone Liberal who has only barely concealed his distaste for Berlusconi’s brand of conservatism.

“ Ruggiero told reporters in Luxembourg on Wednesday. “We’re waiting for a response from the Belgian prime minister. This response has yet to come.”

Michel had graded Berlusconi during an October 7 talk show on Belgium’s commercial French-language television station RTL-TVi that went largely unnoticed in Brussels, but belatedly sent tongues wagging in Rome.

It had not even been mentioned publicly when Berlusconi came to Brussels last Wednesday for talks with European Commission President Romano Prodi, himself a former Italian prime minister.

Berlusconi got under Michel’s skin when he told Italian journalists in Berlin on September 26 that the West “should be confident of the superiority of our civilization” over Islam.

The media magnate-turned-politician also urged Europe to “reconstitute itself on the basis of its Christian roots.”

Michel, who happened to be in Cairo at the time, leading an EU mission to shore up Arab support in the fight against terrorism, branded the prime ministers’ remarks as “not acceptable.”

Earlier this year, Michel criticized Berlusconi for allying himself politically with Italy’s far right.—AFP