A heated row has broken out between Spain and Italy over whether women should be given powerful Cabinet jobs.

Silvio Berlusconi, who takes power shortly as Prime Minister of Italy for the third time, caused outrage in Spain after he suggested that the new Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was “too pink”.

Mr Berlusconi, who won a sweeping victory in this week’s Italian election, told a radio station: “Zapatero has formed a government that is too pink, something that we cannot do in Italy because there is a prevalence of men in politics and it isn’t easy to find women who are qualified.”

Mr Zapatero, a self-declared feminist, made equal rights a centrepiece of his first term in office, passing a law making it compulsory for electoral lists and even company boards to be composed of at least 40 per cent women. This week he suggested that he would go even further in his second government by naming more women than men to his Cabinet. “Now he’s asked for it,” Mr Berlusconi said. “He will have problems leading them.”

The remark, which aides said was meant to be light-hearted, passed almost unnoticed in Italy, which is used to Mr Berlusconi’s jokes and gaffes — as well as his unreconstructed male chauvinism. In Spain, however, it was greeted with disbelief.

Magdalena Álvarez, the Spanish Infrastructure Minister, described Mr Berlusconi’s remarks as absolutely inappropriate and an offence to citizens. “Many of us women would never belong to a government headed by Mr Berlusconi,” she declared.

Women in Spain have not occupied merely minor roles: Mr Zapatero stunned the country’s military by appointing a young woman — who is seven months pregnant — as Defence Minister. Both the Spanish and the Italian press have run pictures of Carme Chacón inspecting Spanish troops wearing a loose-fitting maternity blouse, her bump visible to all.

Other Spanish ministers dismissed Mr Berlusconi’s contention that there were no women qualified to serve in government. Even Esperanza Aguirre, the conservative president of the Madrid regional government and a leading light of the opposition Popular Party, said that appointing so many women had been “one of the best things” that Mr Zapatero had done.

Mr Berlusconi yesterday held his first coalition “summit meeting” to decide the distribution of Cabinet posts. He has said that he will honour his election pledge to include at least four women in his Cabinet.

Attitudes towards women have diverged sharply in Spain and Italy. The Spanish Government recently forced Dolce & Gabbana, the Italian fashion company, to pull an advertisement showing a man pinning a scantily clad woman to the floor as a group of men looked on.

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