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
Death and funeral of Helmut Kohl and was honoured with an unprecedented European Act of State in his honour in Strasbourg, France, attended by the leaders of the EU's nations and other current and former world leaders. Subsequently, a Catholic requiem mass was celebrated in the Speyer Cathedral in Speyer, Germany, before Kohl was interred in the nearby Old Cemetery. Helmut Kohl was survived by his two sons Walter Kohl and Peter Kohl, and by his grandchildren Johannes and Leyla Kohl. No member of the Kohl family—Kohl's children and grandchildren—participated in any of the ceremonies, owing to a feud with Kohl's controversial new wife Maike Kohl-Richter,