Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel favour a possible partnership between German airline Lufthansa and ailing Italian carrier Alitalia, according to dpa. "We both view very favourably a collaboration between Alitalia and Lufthansa. In fact we hope it will occur," Berlusconi said during a joint news conference with Merkel in Trieste. Earlier Tuesday Italy's top financial newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore, reported that a private Italian consortium, CAI, which is in the process of purchasing the state's controlling stake in Alitalia, was on the verge of clinching a deal with French-Dutch airline Air France-KLM. The "imminent" deal would involve Air France-KLM buying a 20 per cent stake of Alitalia for some 200 million euros (252 million dollars), the newspaper said without citing sources. But Tuesday's remarks by Berlusconi suggest the matter has still to be decided. Earlier this year the Italian premier, who was then head of Italy's opposition, torpedoed a bid by Air France-KLM to buy Alitalia when he campaigned to keep the troubled flagship airline "in Italian hands." Coming just three days after they both attended the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Washington on the global financial crisis, Berlusconi and Merkel on Tuesday largely focused on economic issues during their talks in the north-eastern Italian Adriatic Sea port.
