Berlusconi is in difficulties because of Bossi's outbursts

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been meeting government colleagues as he scrambles to mend relations within his ruling coalition.

Centre-right leaders held a summit at Mr Berlusconi's office on Friday without Umberto Bossi, the leader of the xenophobic Northern League.

The new row broke out on Thursday when the centrist Union of Christian Democrats (UDC) and the post-Fascist National Alliance pulled out of a meeting in protest at controversial remarks made by Mr Bossi, causing the meeting to be cancelled.

Bossi loves talking with fireworks but, beneath this language, there is a sensible person who respects pacts Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

He said that the old Christian Democrats who ruled Italy in the post-war era should have been shot for - in his view - leading the country to bankruptcy:

"I have only been saying what people think: The old Christian Democrats are the ones who have ruined the country and this is why they should have been executed by firing squad," Mr Bossi said.

'A sensible person'

Bossi probably does not realize that by choosing the tactics of insults, he is damaging himself, his party and the north National Alliance spokesman Mario Landolfi

"One must understand he was speaking to his constituency," the prime minister said in response to previous remarks.

"Certain things would be difficult to accept if said by someone else, but from him... Bossi loves talking with fireworks but, beneath this language, there is a sensible person who respects pacts," he added.

It is not only the UDC, the right-of-centre heirs to the now defunct Christian Democracy, that are unhappy.

"Bossi probably does not realize that by choosing the tactics of insults, he is damaging himself, his party and the north," said National Alliance spokesman Mario Landolfi.

"I hope he realizes that in Milan the National Alliance has twice as many votes as the Northern League," he said.

Both the UDC and the Northern League have threatened to withdraw support from the government at different times in the recent past.

Mr Berlusconi's government would lose its Senate majority if either of those parties were to pull out.

And several controversial bills - ranging from the media, the budget, pension reform and in vitro fertilization - risk triggering a series of tit-for-tat vetoes in parliament from his coalition partners.

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