The leaders of Italy's biggest opposition party, the Democratic Left, tried on Wednesday to limit political damage sustained as a result of ties to scandal-tainted Italian insurer Unipol.
Party leader Piero Fassino and number 2 Massimo D'Alema both said they had made mistakes by trusting Unipol's former chief, Giovanni Consorte, and by not looking closely at his take-over bid for Banca Nazionale del Lavoro.
After months of scandals and judicial probing, Unipol's bid for BNL received the final death blow on Tuesday with an official red light from the Bank of Italy. Fassino and D'Alema had initially supported the bid. But more damaging to the party was the recent publication of a phone conversation between Fassino and Consorte in which the politician spoke as if he were directly involved in the bid.
Unipol is controlled by Italy's food and agriculture co-operatives, which have traditionally been aligned with the Democratic Left. Fassino, who insists the conversation was purely informative, stressed his own good faith as he addressed a meeting of party bigwigs called specifically to discuss the Unipol affair.
He also underlined his party's moral integrity. "Italians can be sure that we are upright people. We can make mistakes and if so it's right that we recognise them and discuss them," Fassino said.
Answering calls from disgruntled members of his party, he added: "I agree with the need for more collegiality in the (party's) political leadership".
He also accused the governing centre-right alliance of "shamefully" exploiting the Unipol affair to smear his Democratic Left (DS) party in the run-up to April 9 elections. Premier Silvio Berlusconi, himself often taken to task for conflicts of interests, has accused the DS of using political influence to further its business interests, such as Unipol.
"They got personally involved to make sure this operation went through," he said on Tuesday.
The DS's traditional supporters have been shocked not only to see businessmen supported by Fassino and D'Alema involved in financial scandals but also to learn that Fassino had direct contact with Consorte.
D'Alema admitted that the impact of the party's support for Unipol had been greater than he realised, saying there had been a "deficit of reflection and valuation" on his part. Fassino's lawyer on Wednesday formally informed Milan prosecutors that the politician deemed himself an injured party in the controversy resulting from the publication of his phone conversation with Consorte.
According to normal procedures, the transcript should have been destroyed after the prosecutors who ordered the wiretapping saw that it contained no evidence of crimes. Somehow it survived and was passed to the Il Giornale daily, which then published it. Il Giornale is owned by Berlusconi's brother.
Milan prosecutors have opened an internal enquiry to discover how this happened and Justice Minister Roberto Castelli has sent inspectors to the prosecutors' offices for the same purpose.
