(BRUSSELS) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made a typically boisterous return to the EU summit stage this week, taking aim at two of his greatest betes noires; European bureaucracy and judges.

"There is much to change in the European institutions, for example the attitude of the European commissioners, who leave governments in difficulties with their declarations," was one Berlusconi jab during the two-day Brussels summit which ended Friday.

"I have asked for changes in their behaviour. I didn't want to insist on the matter during the summit, but I want a decision taken by the next summit, October 15, and it must be prepared," he said.

The commissioners within the EU executive "have nothing to talk about. Their job is to tell member states how to achieve the objectives set by the heads of state and government.

"Governments should not have to find themselves under the newspaper spotlight every three days thanks to their statements," Berlusconi insisted during his first European Summit since returning to power in April.

He himself has certainly found himself in the papers since the election thanks to the European Commission which has turned up the heat recently on his Italian government.

In Italy on Thursday, parliament gave the green light to an emergency 300-million-euro (465-million-dollar) state loan aimed at saving flag carrier airline Alitalia from bankruptcy.

The European Commission earlier this month launched an illegal state aid probe into the loan over concerns that it might be "incompatible" with EU public aid rules.

Berlusconi's brand of summit diplomacy was not designed to build bridges with the commission and the response was swift.

"The commission is an independent institution, it is not a secretariat for member states," Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso asserted during a press conference after the summit ended.

Self-made billionaire Berlusconi was not the only EU summiteer to take a swipe at the commission.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson in his sights, accusing him of playing a role in the Irish "no" vote in a referendum on the bloc's reforming Lisbon Treaty.

He targeted Mandelson for seeking to push forward with World Trade Talks, despite not receiving adequate negotiating offers from the EU's trading partners, thereby stoking fears in Ireland's farming community.

"Frankly, there's only one person who thinks like that and it's Peter Mandelson and it's not France's position," Sarkozy told reporters.

The verbal fireworks between member states officials and the EU executive extended to German member of the European parliament Martin Schulz, head of the chamber's Socialist group.

He criticised Irish EU commissioner Charlie McCreevy for admitting he hadn't read the Lisbon treaty because it was too complicated, a message well-received by the "no" campaigners.

However Berlusconi is the past master of the press conference attack and also took the opportunity at the summit to rail against Italian judges for undermining democracy.

"I cannot allow it. I am going to organise a press conference next week to denounce these revolutionary judges who use false accusations to undermine democracy".

Italy's ANSA news agency reported Friday that Berlusconi's trial for attempted corruption will continue before a Milan court even though he has said the presiding judge disqualified herself.

Judge Nicoletta Gandus had drawn flak from the conservative prime minister for "publicly taking positions violently opposed" to his previous 2001-2006 government, but she ruled Friday that his trial would not be suspended.

Berlusconi, along with British tax lawyer David Mills, has been on trial since March last year for allegedly paying Mills 600,000 dollars in exchange for false testimonies in two of his trials in the late 1990s.

The two face prison terms of four to 12 years if convicted.

The Italian leader has a long history of eurospats.

His second spell as prime minister, from June 2001 to May 2006, was marked by running battles with the European Commission -- run by his adversary Romano Prodi, the Italian left leader, from September 1999 to October 2004.

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