Italy's tourism minister resigns, ending standoff with PM Meloni

ROME, March 25 – Italy’s Tourism Minister Daniela Santanche handed in her resignation on Wednesday, following a call from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for her to step aside over a string of legal accusations.

“Dear Giorgia, As you have officially requested, I hereby tender my resignation from the role of minister that you had wished to entrust to me, and which I believe I carried out to the best of my abilities,” Santanche wrote in a statement.

Looking to draw a line under a bruising defeat in a referendum on reforms to the judiciary, Meloni on Tuesday secured the resignation of two scandal-hit officials and also asked Santanche, long accused of financial wrongdoing, to leave her tourism post.

Santanche — a member of Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party — initially resisted the highly unusual public demand from the head of the government, who under Italy’s post-war constitution cannot directly sack ministers.

She then said she was quitting “only in response to a request (from) the leader of my party” and did not want to be the scapegoat for a referendum defeat “which was certainly not my fault.”

“Having said this, I have no difficulty saying ‘I obey’ and doing what you ask of me,” she added.

In the wake of the referendum defeat, the prime minister was quoted in the press as saying she was no longer prepared to cover for discredited allies.

OUTSPOKEN STYLE

Known for her outspoken style, Santanche has been mired in long-running court disputes but had resisted repeated calls from the opposition for her to quit.

She faces a trial on false accounting charges at the Visibilia publishing group she used to own, and prosecutors are also seeking her indictment for alleged benefit fraud at the same company during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In disputes going even further back, she is under investigation in two cases of alleged fraudulent bankruptcy in a bio-food group that she was chairwoman of.

Santanche’s decision to quit came after the centre-left opposition tabled a no-confidence motion that would have been discussed next week, creating a potential serious embarrassment for Meloni. Applause broke out in the lower house after news of her resignation.

“I will not hide from you a certain bitterness over the outcome of my ministerial path, but in my life I have grown used to paying my own debts, and often those of others as well,” Santanche said. REUTERS