The eyes of Italian politics return to the 007 appointments. Mario Parente’s office at the top of Aisi is about to expire and the role of Deputy Director of Dis is back vacant after the departure of Carmine Masiello. But the waltz does not end here …
Even more than gossip and palace drafts, there is a sport that regularly, every year, warms the hearts of Roman politics: the appointments of the secret services. Behind the fuss over the Report-Mancini case and the adventures of Copasir, the intelligence control committee stuck in the dispute for the presidency between the Lega and the Brothers of Italy, there is therefore a much more important game concerning the future structure of the sector and has already set the party secretariats in motion.
The game is all the more delicate because it reopens while the old controversies on the relationship between politics and 007, triggered by the video Matteo Renzi in a motorway restaurant with Mancini. The boxes vacant or close to the changing of the guard are few but all of the utmost importance.
Some, of importance, have already been completed at the end of the Conte-bis government, with the appointment of Luigi Della Volpe e Carlo Massagli as deputy directors of the Aise and of Carlo De Donno deputy director of Aisi.
The closest deadline, and the one that is most upsetting the relations between the majority and the opposition in these hours, is that of Mario Parente, director of Aisi, the agency of services for the interior. Appointed on April 29, 2016 by the then Prime Minister Renzi, Parente has already received two extensions, one biennial, from 2018 to 2020, and a “technical extension” of one year on June 15, 2020 by order of the former premier Giuseppe Conte.
The latter was at the center of a heated dispute within the majority of the Conte-bis, with a frond of the Five Stars and Copasir himself protesting the method with which the extension was introduced (an article of the August decree ). There is therefore a month left to find a replacement at the helm of the 007 Aisi.
Too little, Fdi denounces, because by law of the appointments Copasir must be informed that, today, it is composed only of majority forces, after its vice-president and senator of Fdi has returned the mandate in protest.
Among the insiders, however, many do not rule out a new extension. Parente’s is not the only box that could end up in the center of a new waltz. In fact, the appointment of the general is news of these hours Carmine Masiello, current Deputy Director of Dis, as the new Deputy Chief of Defense Staff in place of Luigi De Leverano, became military adviser of Mario Draghi at Palazzo Chigi. A position could therefore be freed up as deputy director of Dis, a position which, according to the press reports, Mancini himself aspired months ago.
It is not mandatory, the law provides for two deputy directors and there are already: the deputy director Bruno Valensise and the deputy director with responsibility for cybersecurity Roberto Baldoni. For the appointment of a possible successor to Masiello, however, a dpcm of Draghi is enough.
The circle, for now, closes with the expiry in 2022 of the mandate of Gennaro Vecchione, general of the Guardia di Finanza appointed general manager of Dis in 2018 and extended last December at the request of Conte.
Also in this case, a technical extension cannot be excluded, even if, as is well known, the head of the Dis is by definition a position marked by a relationship of trust towards the premier. It will therefore be up to Draghi to opt for a continuity line or not.
Among the pending question marks remains the new “Cybersecurity Agency” announced by the Undersecretary of State with responsibility for Security and Intelligence Franco Gabrielli, former head of the police called by Draghi to lead the sector with a double delegation, an (unprecedented) recognition due to his authority in the world of Italian security.
The reform has not yet been formalized and the agency, Gabrielli said, would be located outside the intelligence sector, but there is no doubt that the leadership of the body can be included in the next round of appointments, moreover in a moment of important reorganization of the management for the cybersecurity of Dis. Baldoni’s same assignment is among those close to expiration.
The current year is also full of changes at the top of the Armed Forces. The waltz was opened in January by the Carabinieri, with the alternation between the outgoing Giovanni Nistri and the successor Teo Luzi in the post of commander general. In February it was the turn of the Army: the general Pietro Serino took the place of the general Salvatore Farina at the top of the Armed Force, freeing the position of Chief of Staff of the Minister of Defense.
More recently the choice of Draghi for the role of military adviser, entrusted to General De Leverano, who has vacated the post of Deputy Chief of Defense Staff, now covered by Masiello. It will be necessary to wait for the last months of the year for the Air Force (the three years of the general will end on 31 October Alberto Rosso) and for the Defense Staff, with General Enzo Vecciarelli expiring on 6 November and the planned transfer, if the alternation is confirmed, to a member of the Navy.
The general joins them Nicolò Falsaperna, who in October will have to leave the post of Secretary General of Defense and National Director of Armaments. The process is the same for everyone. The appointments come from the Council of Ministers on the proposal of the Minister of Defense, all with suitable times to guarantee the handover before the end of their respective mandates.