Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who is fending off reports he allegedly hosted paid escorts at his home, told journalists who recorded and published a private conversation with his lawyer on Friday they were ''spies'' who should be ''ashamed of themselves''.
''I can't face an Italy like this,'' the premier said in Brussels, on the sidelines of a meeting of European Union leaders.
The phone call with lawyer Niccolo' Ghedini, who is also an MP with the premier's People of Freedom (PdL) party, was picked up by a Sky news video camera microphone prior to the start of the EU meeting and released to news agencies.
In the transcript of the call, Berlusconi is heard trying to reassure Ghedini that phrases attributed to him and carried in headlines by the Italian press on Friday were wholly made up.
''I never said that phrase, that really makes me blow my top ..that is, 'that I'll hit back blow by blow'...it's really incredible...there are things (in the papers) which I never said: I never said anything about 'an obscure plot', I never said I was 'afraid of being spied on' and I never said 'my lawyer is crazy'...they're scoundrels,'' the premier told Ghedini.
''Come on, Niccolo', how can you believe I'd say that?,'' said Berlusconi, in reference to other alleged remarks about the lawyer carried by the press.
''At this point, I'm the one who is taking offence. I'm going to phone (government spokesman Paolo) Bonaiuti so we can put out a statement,'' the premier is heard telling Ghedini.
Ghedini later told reporters in Milan that he was ''kidding Berlusconi'' during the phone call while telling him that Italy's privacy watchdog had accepted their injuction request for 5,000 paparazzo photos shot with a long lens of events at the premier's private villa in Sardinia.
''What I told Berlusconi is: despite your crazy lawyer, the watchdog accepted our request...he replied that the headlines carried by some papers were false''.
Speaking at a news conference after the summit, the premier lashed out at reporters from the left-leaning press, accusing them of printing ''rubbish and trash''.
''I will not reply to questions about presumed scandals, maybe I'll do so in Milan or Rome,'' said the premier.
''There's nothing to clear up. It's all clear: it's all trash,'' said Berlusconi, stressing that he had fended off personal attacks in the past and would do again.
The premier also dismissed rumours of rifts within his PdL party and the possibility he would be forced to quit and would be replaced by Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti or Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi.
''These stories I read about plots in the PdL are just make-believe politics. I get along well with Tremonti, he's absolutely a friend whom I respect and have faith in... and I also appreciate Mario Draghi's abilities and fairness,'' said the premier.
Speaking in Rome, Bonaiuti said some of the press headlines were ''completely made up but to make it look like they were quotes they were placed in inverted commas and attributed to the premier by anonymous sources''.
Government Programs Minister Gianfranco Rotondi also waved off suggestions of a rift, saying ''it's just a little black cloud that will go away''.
He also accused some dailies of ''cooking up a scandal with set-up interviews and accusations in line with the best policies of the gutter they come from''.
Regional Affairs Minister Raffaele Fitto said reports of a possilbe government shake-up in the wake of the media storm on the premier's private life were unrealistic.
''Absolutely not,'' he told reporters who asked him about problems for the Berlusconi government, which swept to power in general elections in April 2008.
