THERE is always someone to let down the class. After annoying the Queen, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s playful prime minister, kept Angela Merkel and other world leaders waiting on the banks of the Rhine yesterday as he chatted on his mobile phone.

Merkel stood on a red carpet to welcome him to a Nato summit but when Berlusconi stepped from his car he had his telephone glued to his ear and carried on talking.

He gave Merkel a sign as if to say “I’m busy” and, as her jaw dropped in amazement, marched in the other direction, pursued by bemused members of his entourage.

A few minutes later, when Gordon Brown got out of his car to be met by Merkel, the two of them laughed at the spectacle of Berlusconi, still on his phone, strolling back and forth on the river bank.

With a shrug, Merkel eventually went to join other leaders, including President Barack Obama, so that they could cross the Rhine in a symbolic ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of Nato.

Met halfway across a footbridge by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, they continued to the French border town of Strasbourg, leaving Berlusconi wandering among the daffodils on the other side of the river.

He missed two group photographs as well as a minute of silence in honour of those killed fighting for Nato. He later rushed over the river to catch up with his 27 counterparts for a third “family” portrait.

Italian diplomats later insisted that Berlusconi, famous for his practical jokes, had apologised to Merkel and that there had been no diplomatic incident.

So what could have been more important than the historic summit? His stockbroker? His children? His wife?

Berlusconi, said an Italian diplomat, had been trying (successfully, it turned out) to convince the Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, to accept the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, as Nato’s new secretary-general.

Erdogan had objected to the Dane, criticising his handling of a row over cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. He had also expressed discontent over a Kurdish television station broadcasting from Denmark.

“He [Berlusconi] has been trying to find a solution to this problem,” said the member of his entourage.

It was not the first time that the gaffe-prone Italian has raised eyebrows during the past few days’ global summitry, which continues today with an EU-American summit in Prague.

During a group photo at Buckingham Palace on the eve of the G20 summit on Wednesday, Berlusconi shouted to the American president: “Mr Obama! It’s Berlusconi.” This prompted the Queen to raise a gloved hand and complain: “Why does he have to shout?”

Reporting on this incident, La Stampa newspaper said the prime minister had an “unrivalled ability to make a fool of himself”, referring to the outrage the Italian leader had caused by referring to Obama’s “suntan”.

He famously likened a German MEP to a “concentration camp guard” and raised eyebrows by saying companies should set up in Italy because “the secretaries are pretty”.

He had to make a public apology to Veronica, his wife, after saying he would marry two attractive television starlets if he were not already married.

Berlusconi responded to the uproar over his exuberance at Buckingham Palace by saying he was fed up with the way the press treated him.

“I will no longer talk to you,” he told journalists at the summit on Friday. “I’m working for Italy while you work against it. I will no longer give news conferences.”

Times Recommends

• Mandela’s tribe threatens President Zuma
• The French empire strikes back
• Wife of cheating governor exacts a political revenge