Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday his People of Freedom (PDL) party firmly opposed Italy leaving the euro and believed such a policy would be disastrous. Berlusconi alarmed many observers earlier this year by musing openly about Italy quitting the euro zone, but he told the French newspaper Liberation in an interview that his remarks had been misreported. He said some members of his party had raised the possibility just to put pressure on Germany to relent with its demands for painful fiscal austerity. “I always said that the exit of one or more of its members would mean the disintegration of the euro zone. It would mean the failure of a historic project to unify Europe and no one could want that,” he said.  “Within the PDL, we all consider that an exit from the euro would be a disaster.” From:Kaleejitimes