The wife of Silvio Berlusconi is seeking a divorce just days after lashing out at the Italian Prime Minister over his selection of beautiful young starlets for the European elections, it was reported today.

Veronica Lario, a former actress, has retained a lawyer to begin divorce proceedings against Mr Berlusconi after 19 years of marriage.

“I have been forced to take this step, I don’t want to add anything else,” La Stampa newspaper quoted Ms Lario, 52, as saying. La Repubblica and the ANSA news agency also carried the report.

Mr Berlusconi’s lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, told Reuters: “This is a strictly personal matter. All matters like this one are private and painful, especially when they relate to family relationships. The prime minister at the moment has no statement to make.”

Last week Ms Lario said her husband's choice of female candidates for the European elections was a “shamelessly trashy” process.

The People of Freedom party has been considering a number of former actresses and television personalities as possible candidates in the June European elections. As party leader, Mr Berlusconi has a powerful voice in who makes the list.

She also accused him of going to the Naples birthday bash of an 18-year-old woman, the daughter of a political acquaintance, but not attending the coming-of-age parties of his own children. “This surprised me,” his wife said drily. “He never attended the 18th birthday parties of his children.”

Mr Berlusconi has three children with Veronica, whom he married in 1990, and two by his first marriage.

Since he first came to power in 1994, however, the couple have mostly lived apart, with Ms Lario remaining in a palatial villa on the outskirts of Milan. She has expressed left-leaning views that differ sharply from her husband’s on issues from the Iraq war to bioethics.

Ms Lario has appeared at her husband’s side only a few times for public photo-calls - visits by Tony Blair, George W Bush and Vladimir Putin and their spouses. She travels for months at a time to the Far East or Latin America without her husband.

Supporters of Berlusconi have criticised Ms Lario for the latest public clash with her husband. But the Prime Minister has received a public tongue-lashing from his wife before.

In January 2007 she published an open letter in La Repubblica demanding a public apology after he openly flirted with showgirls and praised the beauty of Mara Carfagna, a former topless model who is now his Minister for Equal Opportunities.

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