US ambassador openly criticising a host nation's spending plans

ROME, Oct 12: The US ambassador, in a rare case of a diplomat openly criticising a host nation's spending plans, has said Italy's shrinking military outlays put at risk its ability to finance NATO missions and wield strategic influence.

At a time when the new centre-left government is pushing a cost-cutting 2007 budget through parliament, Ambassador Ronald Spogli made a speech saying Italy was a ''prime member'' of the group of NATO countries whose defence budgets were falling.

''With defence expenditures sinking well below 1 per cent of GDP, Italy will have a harder and harder time maintaining its prominent role in the alliance both in terms of missions and strategic influence,'' Spogli told a conference yesterday, according to the text of a speech released today.

After winning an April election, Prime Minister Romano Prodi shifted Italy away from his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi's close relationship with the Bush administration and announced a military pullout from Iraq.

But Prodi has backed Italy's continued presence in Afghanistan and has sent the largest contingent to a United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, despite misgivings by pacifists in his government.

In an apparent reference to Prodi's difficulties dealing with a broad coalition ranging from ardent pro-US politicians in the centre to communists and pacifists, Spogli said Italy found it politically difficult to increase defence spending.

''Ideological divisions within political coalitions and a general lack of public awareness about NATO and Italy's key role as a contributor to peace make it harder to make the right long-term security choices,'' he said in his speech to the NATO Defence College.

A communist member of parliament said Spogli had no business commenting on Italy's budget debate.

''The representative of an allied country should abstain from intervening in the internal choices of Italy,'' Severino Galante said, adding that the draft 2007 budget foresaw a 4.6 percent increase in defence spending, an amount he aimed to reduce.

NATO member states are meant to aim for military spending of 2 percent of GDP, but most miss that goal.

Reuters