Italy’s playboy Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shrugged off a crushing political setback yesterday, quipping that it was too early for his funeral, as his trial for sex with an underage prostitute resumed.

The billionaire tycoon’s People of Freedom party suffered a humiliating defeat in local elections on Monday, including the loss of Milan city hall.

But Mr Berlusconi played down the results, smiling and joking with reporters during an official visit to Romania.

“I had a meeting because I wanted to set the date for my funeral but I’m too busy in the next few days so let’s put it off,” he said.

Immediately after the vote on Monday, he had conceded: “We lost. It’s clear. But now we have to remain calm and move forward. The majority is determined and united. Every time I suffer a setback, I triple my forces.”

Back home in Rome, Pier Luigi Bersani, the head of the main opposition Democratic Party, called on the Prime Minister to resign.

“It’s a disaster for the country to be obsessed with the problems of just one person. Berlusconi... cannot keep Italy prisoner,” he said.

The opposition has long argued that Mr Berlusconi is in no position to govern while he continues to stand trial for a series of alleged legal and sex offences.

In the latest trial, which began in April, the 74-year-old has been charged with paying for sex last year with Moroccan-born Karima El Mahroug, better known as “Ruby the Heart Stealer”, when she was 17.

He is also accused of abuse of power for allegedly pressuring police to have her released from custody when she was arrested for theft.

The Prime Minister did not attend yesterday’s hearing, but his lawyers presented a series of complaints including challenging the court’s right to hear the case.

The defence claims the premier ensured Ms El Mahroug was released in order to avoid a diplomatic incident because he mistakenly thought she was the niece of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Mr Berlusconi’s lawyer Niccolo Ghedini said he should be tried in a special court for ministers if judged to have been acting in an official capacity.

He also said the defence could produce witnesses who were with Mr Berlusconi when he met Mr Mubarak and could testify to having heard him speak “confidently” about knowing the Egyptian chief’s niece during a speech at a formal dinner.

The premier, who faces a maximum of 12 years in prison, has denied all the charges and accuses prosecutors of cooking up a left-wing plot against him.

Leaders of Mr Berlusconi’s party are to meet today to discuss the outcome.

Mr Berlusconi had campaigned hard ahead of the local elections and urged Italians to go to the polls to signal their support for his conservative coalition government in Rome.

“This time we didn’t win, but we continue. I am a fighter,” Mr Berlusconi said.

Final results from the runoff elections held on Monday and on Sunday appeared to support recent opinion polls that have shown his popularity slipping as he faces a trial in Milan in a prostitution scandal.

Critics have said most of his energy has been involved defending himself from charges that he paid for sex with an underage Moroccan teenager then used the premier’s office to try to cover it up.

The votes mark a setback for 74-year-old Mr Berlusconi personally and for his local candidates, analysts say, and will likely raise questions about his leadership. In Milan, Mr Berlusconi’s candidate, Mayor Letizia Moratti, won about 45 per cent of the vote in the runoff against Giuliano Pisapia of the centre-left.

Milan, Italy’s financial and fashion capital and Mr Berlusconi’s own power base, had been run by conservative mayors for almost two decades.

The government has been criticised for not taking on tough reforms to help stimulate growth. That was one of the reasons that Standard & Poor’s recently downgraded the outlook for Italy to negative.

In the Naples run-off, the leftist candidate Luigi de Magistris, a former magistrate, won by a landslide with 65 per cent of the vote, compared to 35 per cent for Mr Berlusconi’s candidate, Gianni Lettieri, according to the final returns.