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Italy’s Salvini faces investigation over ‘misuse’ of police aircraft

The head of Italy's far-right League, Matteo Salvini, could be investigated for the alleged unauthorised use of service aircraft for party business while he was a cabinet minister, Italian media reported on Thursday.

Published: 12 December 2019 17:11 CET
Italy's Salvini faces investigation over 'misuse' of police aircraft
Italian League party leader and former government minister Matteo Salvini. Photo: AFP

The state prosecutor in Rome has sent documents to a tribunal charged with monitoring public finances concerning 35 flights Salvini took while deputy prime minister and interior minister, according to the Corriere della Sera.

The prosecutor has asked the court to determine whether the flights on police and firefighters' planes and helicopters constituted an abuse of office.

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According to a recent investigation by La Repubblica, Salvini often scheduled official state trips within Italy just before or after rallies for the League.

“I can't wait to go in front of the courts,” Salvini said when asked about the report at a news conference on Thursday.

The prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

Italy's audit court had earlier opened, then shelved in September, an investigation on financial grounds, arguing that the cost of the trips did not appear to be higher than what would normally have been authorised.

Still, the court considered the flights illegal because Italian law stipulates that police and firefighting aircraft should be used exclusively for institutional use and not by state ministers.

Matteo Salvini (centre) frequently wore the uniforms of the Italian police and fire brigade while in office, and is alleged to have misused their aircraft. Photo: Matteo Salvini/Twitter

Only the five highest members of state — the president, the two parliament speakers, the prime minister and the head of the constitutional court – are legally allowed to use such aircraft.

Exceptions most be specially authorised, which was not the case for Salvini.

He is also reported to have ordered police and firefighters to remove banners protesting against his League party while he was serving as Minister of the Interior, responsible for the Italian police force and fire service.

Salvini is currently embroiled in other judicial affairs, including alleged links between the League and Russia, and a decades-long corruption scandal involving the party, for which a court has confiscated 49 million euros.

READ ALSO: Salvini denies the League sought funding from Russia

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EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

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