You might be right. However, see this: Italy has voted Berlusconi for 20 years and now has another despotic leader who might stay another 20 who speaks poor English and has very bad understanding of economics. Meanwhile, no real policy change has been done in ages. The last try to reduce pension spending cutting the highest pensions has been rejected as not constitutional, but I digress. How is Italy going to get out of the hole it has been digging for 30 years? I just don't see it, but I may be wrong, I hope so at least.

   and now has another despotic leader who might stay another 20 who speaks poor English...

What has his conduct of the English language to do with governing a country, where Italian is the main spoken language?

This is extremely arrogant and has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the issue.

True, we are talking about economics, not languages, so the OP projected PM's incompetence in one area without providing additional facts.

However, I see nothing arrogant for his country citizens (who pay his salary) to expect of the highest-level official of a EU country to have such basic skills as speaking English.

There are 24 official languages in the EU, of which English is only one.

Here's from the source, which is as official as it gets: http://ec.europa.eu/languages/policy/linguistic-diversity/of...

On paper, yes.

In reality, English is being used, as it is everywhere else in the world whenever you need to talk to people from other countries.

Evidence: http://www.theguardian.com/education/datablog/2014/may/21/eu...