UniCredit CEO Federico Ghizzoni
told the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the banking
crisis Wednesday that Cabinet Secretary Maria Elena Boschi asked
him to "evaluate the acquisition of Banca Etruria" but did not
try to lean on him when she was a minister in December 2014.
"It was a cordial encounter, there was no pressure," Ghizzoni
added.
"I was not asked outright to buy Banca Etruria, which I would
have considered unacceptable, but to assess an intervention in
Banca Etruria, with independent judgement".
Former reform minister Boschi had denied reports that she
applied undue pressure over Banca Etruria, which her father Pier
Luigi was vice president of for a period.
The bank was one of four troubled lenders that went to the
wall in 2015, and were reformed as good banks and subsequently
sold off.
The failures caused losses for bondholders and created
political turmoil for the ruling centre-left Democratic Party
(PD).
Boschi recently sued journalist Ferruccio de Bortoli for
saying in a book that she asked Ghizzoni to buy Etruria.
The minister, who has faced quit calls, hailed his testimony
as vindicating her claims she did not meddle.
"The hearing confirms my version of events and I'm not going
to quit," she said.
She said that although she had most of the press against her
and on de Bortoli's side, "I will win the libel suit".
The former Corriere della Sera editor, for his part, said
"Ghizzoni has confirmed Boschi's request" to buy her father's
bank.
"The court will have the last word, but I never spoke of
pressure," he said.
Opposition politicians reiterated calls for Boschi to quit
while government MPs defended her and said she had been proved
right.
Roberto Speranza of the small leftwing MDP party said
Ghizzoni's testimony had shown that "there is a conflict of
interests and Boschi should face the consequences of that".
Ghizzoni also revealed that Marco Carrai, a businessman
considered close to Renzi, and the best man at his wedding, sent
him an email in January 2015 asking about Etruria.
PD Lower House whip Ettore Rosato was quick to say that
"Carrai is a businessman, he has nothing to do with the PD".
Carrai himself, now the CEO of Florence airport, said he had
had several meetings with Ghizzoni, for "various professional
initiatives".
"My interest for my client was legitimate", he said, adding
that he was "surprised" by how he had been drawn into the probe.
"My email to Ghizzoni was for a technical, transparent
motive," he said.
Carrai said he would take action against anyone using his
name wrongly.
Former PD leader, now heavyweight in the splinter MDP group,
Pier Luigi Bersani, said:
"They're continuing to play games at the expense of savers
who were betrayed and it all comes from a tight circle, all born
in a few kilometres, and transported to Rome. If (Premier Paolo)
Gentiloni is happy with this image, if they're OK with it..."
Bersani said "I never in all the years I was a minister
treated something from (his home town) Piacenza different from
one in Canicatti (in Sicily), it's one thing to be an MP,
another one to be a minister"
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