July 7, 2008 (LPAC)--On the eve of the G-8 summit in Tokyo, when the EU Commission Chairman usually participates with the other heads of state and government, EU Chairman José Manuel Barroso gave an interview to the Italian daily La Repubblica in which he arrogantly rejects Giulio Tremonti's proposal to use antitrust provisions to stop financial speculation on oil and commodities. "We are of the opinion too, that oil prices do not respond to just a market logic and that they should naturally be lower. That said, it is also difficult to define what is speculation and what is not speculation. I do not think that at the G8 we will propose a particular instrument to control the phenomenon... I do not think that specific measures will be adopted."

Tremonti, who proposed to apply Article 81 of the European Treaty on market manipulations, has described figures such as Barroso in a recent speech before a Parliamentary committee, comparing them to a character in Alessandro Manzoni's famous 1827 novel I promessi sposi (The Betrothed): In the midst of the plague in Milan in the 16th Century, the Spanish academician Don Ferrante debated whether the plague was "accident or substance," until the plague caught him and killed him.

BACKGROUND: July 6, 2008 - London's Favorite Son, Evans-Pritchard: They're Trying To Hurt Mumma!

June 6, 2008 - LaRouche in Dialogue with Italian Political Leaders at Forum in Rome