Prodi's comments

Arnold Cassola's remarks on "dirty tricks" by our political group, the EPP-ED group in the European Parliament (October 18) are totally unwarranted and cannot be left unanswered.

Readers will recall that last week we issued a statement reacting immediately to press reports of Romano Prodi singling out Malta when complaining on Italy's share of seats in the European Parliament.

We expressed our surprise that Mr Prodi should single out Malta, of all countries. We also argued that, in any case, Mr Prodi was wrong in what he said.

We issued our statement after verifying the source article in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale and with a person who was present at the meeting when Mr Prodi made his comments. So we had first-hand information and we hardly needed to check the ownership of the newspaper as Prof. Cassola ludicrously suggests.

If Mr Prodi has now retracted his comments or changed his mind, it is fine by us. But we fail to understand why Prof. Cassola is so upset at us for reacting promptly to safeguard our country's interests rather than let the story simmer in the European media. Indeed, we expected him to do likewise rather than wait for us before taking the cue.