ROME (AFP) — Italian prime minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi wasted no time on Tuesday in naming key cabinet posts while his emphatic election victory drew a lukewarm response from abroad.

The 71-year-old media tycoon said his full cabinet would take shape within a week, to include EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini as foreign minister and longtime aide Gianni Letta as deputy prime minister.

The Milan billionaire, set to take up a third stint as premier, said the crucial economy portfolio would go to Giulio Tremonti, who served in the role under Berlusconi’s previous government.

Praise and criticism of the poll result poured in on Tuesday, with US President George W. Bush saying he was eager to work again with Berlusconi, who was one of Bush’s strongest European allies, notably in the run-up to the Iraq war despite massive opposition at home.

But Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Greens in the European parliament, complained: “European decisions will be difficult with this government which will be very eurosceptic.”

The Italian billionaire will be a precious ally to opponents of a strong euro and of European budgetary discipline, notably for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who vowed to “deepen the traditional bond of friendship” between their two countries.

Berlusconi, while shrugging off fears that he would allow his anti-immigration ally the Northern League to influence his agenda, vowed to crack down on illegal immigrants and a criminal “army of evil.”

He said he would cooperate with Italy’s neighbours in “deporting non-EU citizens who are here and do not have work or a home and are forced into crime in order to live.”

Speaking in a telephone interview with Rai Uno television, he added: “We need to step up neighbourhood police who can be an army of good … placing themselves between the Italian people and the army of evil.”

Later, at his first news conference since winning the polls, Berlusconi also denied that the resurgent Northern League would wield too much power.

“I heard someone say that the League will call the shots, but the League never commanded in five years of government,” Berlusconi said.

The anti-immigration, euro-sceptic party “has always been very reasonable at the decision-making table,” he said, adding that he and Northern League leader Umberto Bossi had a “brotherly” relationship.

Bossi, 66, whose party nearly doubled its strength in parliament, brought down Berlusconi’s first government in 1994 when he withdrew his support after only a few months.

Martin Schultz, head of the Socialists in the EU parliament, warned that Berlusconi’s alliance with the “extreme-right, openly xenophobic” Northern League represented a “real danger for Italy and for Europe.”

Berlusconi told the news conference that Europe should boost its presence on the world stage, finding leaders to replace the “old greats of European politics” such as France’s Jacques Chirac, Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder and Britain’s Tony Blair, who would once again “make (Europe) a protagonist in world affairs.”

Europe’s relations with Moscow should be “much closer, warmer and cordial,” Berlusconi said.

He said he thought he could “play a role” because of his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will be the first world leader to visit the prime minister-elect in Italy on Thursday.

The main challenge facing the new government is to pull Italy out of a deepening economic slump.

More than half of Italians surveyed at the end of March — 51.4 percent, way up from 36 percent a year ago — felt that their personal economic situation had worsened.

The economy grew just 1.5 percent last year, and the outlook for 2008 is bleaker still at 0.6 percent.

At the news conference, Berlusconi, asked about the failure of far-left parties to win any seats in the next parliament, hailed what he called a “conquest, not just thanks to us, but thanks to the citizens who overcame the era of fragmentation” in Italian politics, long splintered into myriad parties.

He added however that within the new centre-left Democratic Party “unfortunately there is a section still tied to this (communist) ideology, hostile to the free market, to private property.”

Losing centre-left leader Walter Veltroni, for his part, vowed Tuesday to lead a strong “shadow cabinet” to make sure that Berlusconi makes good on his promises.

Also Tuesday, visiting US writer Erica Jong said Berlusconi was “a clown like George W. Bush,” the ANSA news agency reported.

“Both of our countries have governments led by people who are incompetent,” said Jong, a New York-born author best known for her best-selling first novel, “Fear of Flying.”