Clash between the opposition and the government over the nomination to the presidency of the Anac, the Northern League member Altieri withdraws

The designation of the Northern League member Trifone 'Nuccio' Altieri as the new president of the National Anti-Corruption Authority took just over 24 hours. At the end of a day of high tension, with an open clash between the opposition (which judged him incompatible with the role) and the government (which assured the opposite, explaining that it had forewarned the two main opposition parties, therefore PD and M5s, without any opposition or reservations being expressed on their part), the former deputy decided to step aside.

"Despite possessing the requisites and skills necessary to hold the position, after having discussed myself with President Meloni and Vice Presidents Salvini and Tajani, I have decided, for reasons of political, institutional and personal expediency, to withdraw my availability", he explained, saying that he was "sorry for the media attacks and controversies that accompanied this choice, despite my professional path and the experience gained in important institutional and industrial realities". Now the Council of Ministers will have to start a new nomination procedure, after the one that Giorgia Meloni had also defended in the morning ("It was within our competence to do so") and the opposition had attacked, even joining together to write a letter to the prime minister asking her to withdraw the nomination. One of the two initiated by the CDM, together with that - also contested by the centre-left - of the Lega deputy Giulio Centemero as commissioner of Consob.

"I count on everything to be absolutely regular", was the line of Matteo Salvini in the middle of the day, who on 18 September 2024 wanted to entrust the Apulian Altieri with the role of head of the Defense department of the League. Having joined the party in 2017, having been elected deputy with FI and having had brief experiences in the Conservatives and reformists and in the Italian Directorate, as League sources have pointed out, he has never held the position of defense manager (also no longer present in the party's organizational chart), because he immediately communicated his unavailability to Armando Siri, as he was already a member of Leonardo's board of directors. And Siri, coordinator of the departments, certified it in a letter on September 27, specifying that the resolution for the assignment of the role was "revoked for all purposes". The clarification came after accusations from the opposition, ready to cite the law that regulates the appointment of the top of the National Anti-Corruption Authority, now led by the jurist Giuseppe Busia (in charge until the successor is formalized) and before that by the magistrate Raffaele Cantone.

The third paragraph of article 13 of Legislative Decree 150 of 27 October 2009 states that "the president and members of the Authority cannot be chosen from among people who hold elective public positions or positions in political parties or trade union organizations or who have held such positions and positions in the three years preceding the appointment and, in any case, must not have interests of any nature in conflict with the functions of the Authority". The attacks were summarized in the letter signed by the group leaders of Pd, M5s, Avs, Italia viva, +Europa, Action to ask Meloni to reverse course and to start "a transparent institutional discussion to identify a figure of high and undisputed institutional profile, to protect the legality and transparency of the country".

The Anac, they underlined, "is not an extension of the executive, nor a terrain for the political division of the majority forces" and its nature "requires at the top a figure characterized by unquestionable impartiality, absolute independence from the parties and proven and specific technical competence in the fight against corruption and in the supervision of public contracts". For the opposition parties, "the choice of a profile coming from the active ranks of politics and the government coalition openly contrasts with the independence requirements essential to guarantee the credibility of the Authority, both in front of Italian citizens and in front of the European institutions that monitor the transparency of public procurement and funds". With Altieri's step back the game now reopens for Anac.