The first Council of Ministers of the new year, it is not known whether before or after the Epiphany, almost certainly approves the one-year extension of the mandate of the commander of the Carabinieri, General Tullio Del Sette . A decision that the government has already taken a few weeks ago, which was scheduled at the Council meeting on December 23rd and which was decided to postpone after, on the 22nd, the daily fact published the news of the general’s registration in the register of under investigation for aiding and abetting and disclosure of the confidentiality of the investigation in the context of the investigation into Consip contracts. The Minister of Sport, Luca Lotti , and the commander of the Tuscan Legion of the Arma, General Emanuele Saltalamacchia , are investigated with him. The file concerning them has been transferred from the Naples prosecutor’s office, which investigates corruption episodes, to that of Rome. The day following the article, Del Sette spontaneously presented himself to the public prosecutor’s office in Rome and on the evening of that 23 December a statement from the Army stated that the general had clarified “the groundlessness of the news seriously damaging his dignity as a man and servant of the state published by a newspaper with conspicuousness “.
It is no secret that news of that kind on the eve of an extension already decided has been read by the government as an attempt to influence its choices. In the end, the postponement thesis prevailed and not that of the nomination on the spot, which could be read as a “reaction”, unable to prove that it was a considered choice. Del Sette has been commander since January 16, 2015 and therefore the two-year mandate expires in the middle of this month. Previously head of the cabinet of the Minister of Defense, Roberta Pinotti (first carabiniere in that role), who wanted him to be in the Army and esteemed him in a bipartisan way having been, among other things, head of the legislative office of the Ministry of Defense with governments of center-right and center-left, Del Sette could indirectly benefit from the change at Palazzo Chigi betweenMatteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni . Indeed, Renzi has always been against extensions and Del Sette, who will turn 66 next May, would have been at risk.
On the other hand, last spring Renzi appointed the head of the secret services, Alessandro Pansa , and that of the police, Franco Gabrielli ., with a very short mandate despite the delicacy of the assignments: just two years, when the heads of national security should operate with a very different breath. For military assignments, the period deemed most appropriate is that of three years to which Del Sette will therefore arrive. A detail that demonstrates how today, with a different Prime Minister, the evaluations are collegial. Although he could not have answered otherwise, it is useful to remember that during the press conference at the end of the year on December 29, Gentiloni, regarding the involvement of Lotti and Del Sette in the Consip investigation, said that those judicial initiatives “do not require the government to take decisions, which in my opinion would be unfair and unjustified “.
Del Sette’s extension leaves the same possibility open for two other senior officers: the Chief of Defense, General Claudio Graziano , and that of the Army, Danilo Errico , both 63 years old, whose posts expire at the end of February . As Formiche.net has already written, Graziano would like to become president of the NATO military committee, a prestigious role already covered by Italy with the admirals Guido Venturoni and Giampaolo Di Paola . The current president, the Czech Petr Pavel, expires in June 2018, but was appointed in September 2014. Graziano, therefore, would like an extension to arrive towards the end of 2017 in service and thus compete for that chair that provides for a three-year mandate and which would certainly give prestige to Italy. However, the expiration of the Greek general Mikhail Kostaracos from the presidency of the EU military committee is further away: he will leave in November 2018. Therefore, if the criterion is that of three years as an appropriate period, Errico and Graziano could also extend the command and, in this last case, with an underlying national interest.
