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 because they object to their father and grandfather not being interred next to his wife of 41 years, Hannelore Kohl. In his biography of his mother, Kohl's son Peter Kohl wrote that Maike Richter seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with his father and compared her to a stalker who had ensnared his father. The Kohl family, unlike Maike Richter, also supports a state ceremony in Berlin. Death and funeral of Helmut Kohl Helmut Kohl, the former Chancellor of Germany, died at 9:15 a.m. on Friday, 16 June 2017 in the Oggersheim district of Ludwigshafen, his home town, aged 87.