(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 17 - "I can't believe that President Berlusconi said those words. I guess it was misunderstood. We are a pro-Atlanticist, pro-European political movement and we have called ourselves in the past 'People of freedom'. But freedom cannot be valid. only for us: it is an indivisible good, as Berlusconi himself taught us, and today it is the freedom for which the Ukrainians are fighting. If the line has changed, someone should tell us ".
This is how the Minister for Regional Affairs MariastellaGelmini responds, questioned by ANSA, to those who ask her for a comment on Berlusconi's declarations yesterday.
"The time of Pratica di Mare - continues Gelmini - unfortunately is over, and today every ambiguity of pro-utinism damages us and undermines the necessary unity of the country: we cannot show hesitation on this because by doing so we facilitate the Russian falsification and we distance ourselves from the European People's Party and the our allies.
I am on the side of Ukraine, of the forty democratic countries that are supporting it, of the EU and of NATO and I am sure that Forza Italia will reaffirm this line ".
(HANDLE).