It is a judicial domino effect that is hitting the Italian regions. After Sicily, Lombardy, Calabria and the recent Laziogate, two other administrations have entered the sights of the judiciary: Piedmont and Emilia Romagna. The spectrum of political forces involved in the investigations therefore widens. Northern League president Roberto Cota governs Piedmont, while Emilia Romagna is headed by a member of the Democratic Party, Vasco Errani.
PIEDMONT
An operation by the Guardia di Finanza has been underway since this morning in the Turin offices of the political groups of the Piedmont Regional Council. The yellow flames presented themselves in the offices of the Pdl and Pd groups to acquire documentation on reimbursements of expenses, the subject of a fact-finding investigation launched by the Turin prosecutor's office. "There is no suspect, it is a survey of the situation," explained the prosecutor Gian Carlo Caselli to the online newspaper Affaritaliani.it.
“As far as I know, the Guardia di Finanza visited all the groups for a fact-finding investigation – Cota told SkyTg24 -. Welcome to understand how the mechanisms of the groups work. There is absolutely nothing to hide. The investigation stems from the controversy that is raging over the Regions these days: the Public Prosecutor's Office said that there were no complaints or complaints”.
However, the statements of Roberto Rosso, a PDL deputy, remain to be clarified. Speaking on Monday evening in a broadcast on Telelombardia, he described a more than suspect system. “You make it appear that you are moving from one place to another – he later confirmed to the Daily fact -, then you go find a local municipal councilor and you get a receipt stating that you are on a mission on behalf of the Region. In this way you collect the mission allowance and also the mileage reimbursement for travel”. Following this scheme, one of his guests in Sestriere would have managed to get paid for the white week from the Piedmont Region.
EMILIA ROMAGNA
The file opened by the Bologna judiciary is also of a cognitive nature. The investigation, coordinated by prosecutors Morena Plazzi and Antonella Scandellari, is conducted by the judicial police and by a pool of five financiers. Once again the goal is to clarify the economic accounts of the council groups of the Regional Assembly and also in this case no politician appears in the register of suspects, nor has any hypothesis of a crime been advanced.
However, the Emilian case is more complex, considering that in Bologna the prosecutors have launched several other investigations into parties and individual politicians in recent months. The sentence of the Gup in the case involving the governor Errani, under investigation for false ideology in the affair of the "Terremerse" cooperative, is expected on November 7th. The President is accused of having provided misleading information to the magistrate investigating the contributions granted by the Region to the cooperative, formerly chaired by Giovanni Errani, brother of the governor.
Instead, the former IDV regional councilor (now councilor of the Province of Bologna in the mixed group) Paolo Nanni is under investigation for embezzlement, in relation to the management of public money set aside by the Region for groups between 2005 and 2010.
Even some representatives of the Northern League in Emilia are in the files of the Bologna prosecutors for the electoral reimbursements received by the Carroccio in the past regional elections. Finally, the Public Prosecutor's Office has launched other investigations against some councilors belonging to all political parties for interviews given under payment to some local broadcasters.
