Policies of Silvio Berlusconi despite the policy divide between the U.S. and many founding members of the European Union (Germany, France, Belgium) during the Bush administration. Under his lead the Italian Government also shifted its traditional position on foreign policy from being the most pro-Arab western government towards a greater friendship with Israel and Turkey (Silvio Berlusconi acted as wedding witness for the son of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan) than in the past, hence rebalancing relations with all the Mediterranean countries to reach "equal closeness" with them. Berlusconi is one of the strongest supporters of Turkey's application to accede to the
Accession of Serbia to the European Union parliamentary majority and government was formed, and the SAA opposition was left without political power. The new Serbian Prime Minister, Mirko Cvetković, announced ""One of the first moves of the new government will be to submit the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union to the parliament for ratification"" and on 9 September 2008 the Parliament of Serbia ratified the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU. The European Commission (EC) subsequently welcomed the ratification of the agreement. On 15 September 2008, the Netherlands froze the trade related part of a pre-accession deal (SAA) with Serbia. The Dutch