Strasbourg, 8 October (AKI) - A day after Italy's Constitutional Court declared illegal the political immunity of Italian prime minister and media-mogul Silvio Berlusconi, a heated debate took place in the European Parliament in Strasbourg over Italian press freedom.

Conservative and right-wing Euro-MPs and liberal left-wing groups were divided over the issue.

The right-wing groups were against debating the issue of Italian press freedom in the European Parliament, claiming the issue was a political manoeuvre aimed at damaging Berlusconi.

Left-wing groups on the other hand, wanted to bring to the issue of press freedom to the 27-member EU. One group cited as a reason Italy's recent downgrading to a "partly-free" country by media watchdog Freedom House.

One of a number of Italian MEPs who attended the debate, however, defended the Italian government over the issue.

Mario Borghezio, an MEP for Italy's Northern League party and part of the right-wing Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group verbally attacked many of his colleagues for their views.

Borghezio slated his socialist colleagues saying they did nothing when the left was in power in Italy and called them "cowards and rogues". He also invited them to speak up against freedom of the press in China, Cuba and Iran.

"In the name of freedom, long live our country!" he said.

Berlusconi owns three of Italy's seven free-to-air TV channels, is suing two left-wing dailies for defamation, and has been accused of interfering in the editorial independence of state broadcaster RAI.

The Belgian leader of The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Guy Verhofstadt said it should not be denied that there is a problem with media freedom in Italy and two other EU countries.

Verhofstadt said this development worried him and called on the European Commission to guarantee media pluralism.

During the debate, Latvian MEP Indrek Tarand from the Greens compared Italy's situation "to a non-lethal virus with the capacity to infect other member states."

Earlier this year, the US-based non-governmental organisation Freedom House downgraded Italy to a country with a "partly-Free" press.

Italy now ranks 73rd, behind the West African country of Benin, Israel in the Middle East and is tied with the tiny South Pacific island of Tonga.

Patrick Le Hyaric of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left criticised the influence of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi over the media, which he said was incompatible with a modern democracy.

He called for the creation of a European body to monitor press freedom.

EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said, however, that the EU had limited powers in the area of the written media but that all member states had institutions for settling any problems over fundamental rights.

She called on MEPs not to try to resolve issues through the EU institutions that should be dealt with at national level.

"The Commission does not have competence in the protection of fundamental rights. Member states have constitutional courts, appeals courts and tribunals which guarantee fundamental rights," she said at the start of the debate.

"We have an example of this in Italy, yesterday with the ruling on the Alfano law," Reding noted.

Parliament will vote on a resolution on the freedom of information at its session of 19-22 October in Strasbourg.