Italian politicians reacted sharply Thursday after French first lady Carla Bruni noted that the Group of Eight president could lose its place on the world's anti-AIDS fund after cash was slashed from the budget.
''As usual the premiere dame is ill-informed,'' said ex-foreign ministry undersecretary Margherita Boniver, pointing out that Italy had until the end of the year to pay its contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, of which Bruni is an ambassador.
''No one ever thought of kicking Italy off the board of the Global Fund, except perhaps her,'' said Giuseppe Moles, a member of the lower house foreign affairs committee.
The spokesman for Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, Daniele Capezzone, said ''the case sparks surprise, especially as Foreign Minister (Franco) Frattini is right now engaged in showing Italy's commitment to Africa''.
Frattini, in Sierra Leone on the third stage of a four- country tour taking in Angola, Nigeria and Senegal, said the quality of the hospital he was visiting in Sierra Leone was ''the best answer to those who criticise Italy's commitment to Africa''.
He noted that Italy had made Africa a priority of its annual term at the helm of the G8.
The flap was spurred by Bruni's answer to a Corriere della Sera reporter in Burkina Faso, who suggested that Italy might risk its place on the board of the Global Fund after an allotted 130 million euros was slashed from the 2009 budget.
''I'm sorry Italy has chosen to do this,'' she was quoted as saying, adding that she would attend the G8 summit in July to ''urge major countries to set an example''.
