BERLIN, July 9: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday called off his summer vacation to Italy after a senior official insulted German tourists as arrogant louts.

“Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder does not want to put his family through further speculation about the little vacation time they have together,” government spokesman Bela Anda said in a statement.

“For this reason, the family plans to spend its vacation together at home in Hanover,” he said, referring to Schroeder’s home town in northern Germany.

Italy’s junior tourism minister Stefano Stefani raised hackles here when he referred to Germans in a right-wing newspaper Friday as “uniform, supernationalistic blonds who loudly invade Italy’s beaches” every summer, adding that Germany itself was “drunk with inflated self-importance”.

Schroeder, who had planned to travel to Italy later this month to stay at the home of an artist friend on the Adriatic, had nevertheless considered the matter closed until Stefani’s outburst was splashed across German newspapers this week.

Senior Italian ministers’ attempts to smooth the ruffled feathers failed to quiet the matter as Stefani stridently refused to apologize before reporters Tuesday. The minister, a member of the xenophobic Northern League party, cheekily offered to personally host Schroeder on vacation, calling him an exception to the stereotypical boorish German holiday maker.

Germans are among the world’s most avid tourists and spend tens of millions of euros each year in Italy.

Nearly eight million tourists visited Italy in 2002, making the country Germans’ second most popular vacation destination after Spain.—AFP