The boxes have not yet been filled all. The final stamp is not there yet. Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti hoped to embark for Washington with the agreement on state appointments closed, but that didn’t happen instead. The tug of war between the Brothers of Italy, Lega and Forza Italia is still ongoing. Thus negotiations continue on the first package of appointments, the heaviest ones, which include managing directors and presidents of the “first tier” investee companies: Eni, Enel, Leonardo, Poste and Terna. And none of Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani wants to be defeated.
Of course, the picture of the managing directors seems traced. As expected, Claudio Descalzi has been confirmed at ENI. Stefano Donnarumma, the CEO of Terna, will go to Enel. The former minister Roberto Cingolani should lead Leonardo, while Matteo Del Fante will remain at the top of the Italian post office. Giorgia Meloni would like to keep the promise of a woman as CEO of a large public company: Giuseppina Di Foggia, former manager of Alcatel and then Nokia, will lead Terna, the electricity grid company. The most visible sign is that of continuity with the past, which is exactly what the League would have liked to avoid.
The premier would like to collect everything. But above all she resists on the name of the former minister Roberto Cingolani, wanted by Meloni, around whom there have been problems with allies and with members of his own party for weeks. The premier wanted him alongside her as a consultant in the passing of the baton with the Draghi government and now wants to promote him. Although Defense Minister Guido Crosetto would have preferred Lorenzo Mariani, CEO of Mbda.
But if the indication of the managing directors seems to have been done, the discourse of the presidencies is different, on which instead there could be a sort of rebalancing between the forces of the majority, in a scheme that would see two boxes for Brothers of Italy, two for Lega, one in Forza Italia. Berlusconi’s party, which sat at the negotiating table with Antonio Tajani and Gianni Letta, manages to snatch the name of Paolo Scaroni for the presidency of Enel, despite the initial block from FdI. The League, on the other hand, is betting everything on Eni, but to Salvini’s great contempt, the names proposed so far, from the Northern League’s Alfredo Becchetti to MEP Antonio Rinaldi, have received a veto from Meloni: “They are not up to par”. For Leonardo, the Commander General of the Guardia di Finanza Giuseppe Zafarana remains in pole position, but in the last few hours the name of Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo has also been circulating, close to Meloni. Zafarana could thus become president of ENI.
But it still comes. Both Lega and Fratelli d’Italia are aware that they cannot come out divided by one of the most important tests for the right for the first time in power. Contacts and discussions are continuous, also because in addition to presidents and CEOs, directors must also be identified.
“It would be bizarre for only one party to indicate names at the expense of the others,” commented the group leader of the League in the Chamber, Riccardo Molinari.
The team of managers of state companies chosen by Meloni
