“Because of the commitments of the President of the Council, who will go to Germany on Thursday for the G8 Summit, the Council of Ministers met today. However on Thursday we will have another meeting where we will discuss the measures relating to the decrees that are near the ends of their time limits: I’m talking about certain international treaties related to which we have to issue decrees to put them into effect.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that we also talked about the Visco case, but I’ll deal with this a bit later. Apart form the ordinary matters, we also discussed a topic raised by the President of Sardinia, Soru. He talked about it at the Council of Ministers.
He spoke at the Council of Ministers because the law allows for the participation of the Presidents of the Regions with Special Statute, when we are talking about a topic that relates to them.
Soru raised the issue: until when will Sardinia have to keep the lands controlled by the military for the Italian State?
It’s clear that the armed forces have to stay somewhere: at one time, we are talking of decades ago, it was decided to place big reserves of vehicles and hardware in Sardinia.
For example, the ammunition, the shooting ranges, even for practising with heavy weapons, many barracks, logistical equipment.
Basically, there’s a strong military presence in Sardinia. At the time it was chosen, Sardinia was selected because it was sparsely populated.
The issue raised by Soru is: “there are 20 regions, when will the occupation of the lands by the military finish in my region and when will another region take on this burden?”
Soru pointed out that in Sardinia there are thousands of hectares of land that cannot be used because they are used by the military and thus this limits the economy. According to the zone, these lands have been used for 50, 60 and even 70 years for the military logistics of the State.
Soru asks: “Why just in Sardinia and not in other regions?”
It’s a great question: today was the beginning of the discussion, and it cannot be concluded in 2 days because a solution can be achieved only if another location is found for these structures.
There was an interesting exchange of opinions, not always coinciding, between the President of the Region of Sardinia and the Minister of Defence, Parisi, also from Sardinia.
We put off until Thursday, the discussion of the bankruptcy law. I have already indicated the attempt to bring to the Council of Ministers the reform of the crime of bankruptcy to halve the sentence. This part of the reform has been suspended but on Thursday the civil part of the reform will be discussed.
Even here there has been a divergence of opinion not just between myself and Mastella but between myself and the rest of the Government, which worries me much more.
I have been told that this draft law cannot be modified because there’s an agreement with the opposition. I replied that what worries me is exactly that.
Every time there’s talk of the justice system, there’s always an agreement with the opposition. We can even do things on our own, some time, without always trying to get the agreement with the opposition!
Here are the relevant questions: according to this reform, when there’s a bankruptcy, the person responsible for the bankruptcy once more gains all the rights once the bankruptcy proceedings have finished.
I maintain that there should be a rehabilitation procedure, as happens now, that checks that the person concerned is not using the system of enterprises to operate swindles or frauds.
Furthermore, they want to modify the position of the Creditors Committee, that should become more or less not responsible. I say that, if the little that remains after a bankruptcy, the Committee must be responsible for their own actions, to avoid disparity of payments made because of conflicts of interest.
I have taken note of the agreement that has been made with the opposition, but I will always reserve the right to dissent.
Finally the Visco case. Visco has resigned his responsibilities, as requested by Italia dei Valori, and for us that matter is now closed. Now, the problem is the Speciale case. If the General has been removed for ordinary happenings there should be a procedure starting off to put forward alternative possibilities that are agreed with the relevant person, in the time frame and the ways laid down in the law.
If he is sent away from one day to the next, there needs to be a reason. In the absence of official reasons, the unofficial reasons become more dramatic.
We need to understand the reason for this removal. Up until now, we don’t really know except for the chattering in the corridors of power. I am not naïve. I have understood what is behind this. But let this be made public. The accusation that at the Command of the Guardia di Finanza there are those who have interests that are different from Justice must be proved, otherwise it should not even be imagined. This affair must be cleared up by the relevant person, that is by the one who asked for the removal of the 4 officers.
With great pride I will go to the festival of the Guardia di Finanza at the end of the month, at L’Aquila and I will continue to express my closeness and my thanks to the whole of the Guardia di Finanza, that must not humiliated. We need operational forces that ensure that we have the rule of law and security.”