In the face of the shortened sentencing of two intermediaries involved in the corruption scandal that stained the acquisition of Eni and Shell of the Opl 245 licence in Nigeria, the government’s response was not long in coming.
To speak, and it would come to say that it is no surprise, was the vice-premier and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini, very clear in his defense of the largest Italian company, still owned by the State for 30 percent.
Salvini reiterated his esteem and thanks to the managing director of Cane a Sei Zampe, at trial in Milan for the Nigerian mega bribe, despite the fact that Claudio Descalzi was defined by the Gup Giusy Barbara in his sentence as “ready to face the claims of Luigi Bisignani, that is, of a private citizen whose name had already emerged in some of the most burning and well-known investigations of the Italian judicial history” (Bisignani is a multi-condemned for the unpatriotic P4 affair, as well as for the Enimont affair in the context of Clean Hands).
Salvini does not comment on the sentences, nor on the fact that, according to Gup herself, “it has been proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that, in the context of the operation for the purchase of the Opl 245 oil exploration licence, some managers of the Italian oil group have actually planned and probably carried out” the “criminal plan to increase the price paid by Eni so as to obtain” the “restitution in black of a substantial sum of money in the order of 50 million dollars, to be shared out between them”.
On the other hand, even the League with a final sentence has taken unduly 49 million of public money with great ease. With the same ease, Salvini felt the need to reiterate his esteem to those who were dictated by Bisignani, who was also a close friend of Paolo Scaroni, former CEO of the company and also on trial in Milan. So the vice-premier seems to deny the disturbing revelations of the judge, but not only.
He thanked “Descalzi and Eni for what they do in Italy and in the world”, because “a country system should protect its best companies”, almost as if to allude to the fact that investigations and trials for international corruption (now a leitmotif of Eni’s history in the last ten years) do not and thus betray the Italian interest. It doesn’t matter if the main Italian multinational actually behaves as the best or not. Just think of the trial underway in Potenza, where she is accused of environmental disaster, possibly to the detriment of the health of Italian citizens.
Fideistically, the Vice Premier seems to tell us that Eni is Italy, period. And even if he paid bribes and some managers took advantage of them, he remains always the best and must be defended with the sword. It must be said that Salvini is not the only one and moves in the same vein as Matteo Renzi, who when he was prime minister in 2014 had hurled against the prosecutor’s office in Milan as soon as it was revealed the investigation into the Opl 245 affair, accusing the magistrates of sensationalism in the press and damage to the Italian champion. In short, Eni should be thanked and dogmatically esteemed, regardless of what it does, and regardless of whether right or left are in power. Whoever dares to “control” the modus operandi of the six-legged dog is not a patriot.
We know the next steps of the bipartisan nationalist narrative: “Be careful, you who criticize Eni, because you are playing the game of the international conspiracy that wants to sink the Italian champion and Italy”. Then, “it’s the fault of the corrupt Nigerians who extort the poor and honest Eni tangents”, and to those who raise some timidly ethical objection, “why don’t the other oil majors do the same?” . Ultimately, “having that oil and gas is a matter of national security, at any cost, including sometimes paying bribes.
In reality, Judge Barbara was far-sighted and raised the question of national interest herself: “From an Italian point of view, it is even more serious because of the involvement of the main company in our country, of which the Italian state itself is the largest shareholder, with obvious damage to the image of the entire national community”. But the sovereignty of the various national Matteis who have succeeded one another in power cannot conceive of a national credibility that is not based on fooling and defeating someone else, but on the simple ethical value of honesty.
What about the forces of change that came to power screaming ‘honesty’ at every turn? We remember Beppe Grillo at the shareholders’ meeting in 2015, when he was barking at the limits of the lawsuit against Eni “which plunders” African countries and destroys national wealth (referring to the difficulties of Saipem). And the ‘veil’ Alessandro Di Battista who will return, and who, still in Italy, was agitated by the parliamentary benches raising, moreover with considerable delay, the question of Opl 245. Today, the pentastellated toast to the new law “sweep corrupt”, which like ghostbusters in Italian sauce will exhaust and make harmless the samples of corruption in our country.
We would like to ask ourselves a very simple question: in front of the sentence of Judge Barbara, without prejudice to the guarantee on the judicial position of Descalzi (and of the same intermediaries Obi and Di Nardo, convicted who could, however, appeal), there would not be the political opportunity to at least suspend the chatted CEO in the name of the national interest and out of respect for the main shareholders of Eni, namely 60 million Italians?
Dear Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, would such a choice be too favorable and respectful of the people, of whom you are a national lawyer, not to mention a ‘populist’ choice as you like to say?
If the management of Eni’s judicial situation is the measure to estimate the change underway in the country with the yellow-green government, there is no doubt that behind the announcements and toasts we move in full continuity with the past republican history in which everyone in power could not but estimate, thank, reverence and defend what in several have called the true Italian parallel state.
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